Dragon Lady

Dragon Lady has always had music. Transitioning to a musical made sense but required more capital and institutional support. The first two years of performing it, I had musical tracks and sang covers of popular songs that had special significance for the story. The third year, I had enough resources and support to commission a composer to create original music, plus create covers of the past songs. My grandmother was a singer in the Philippines. All of the women in my family are singers and the men are musicians. Music is in my blood. It wouldn’t be a Porkalob show without music.

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“I felt like so many of the examples of art that was held out to me as something I should work toward did not reflect my experience. It did not reflect my family as people of color, as immigrants, as people who grew up poor, as women. It really forced me to acknowledge that my education was missing and there was a lack of theater, of narrative, that reflected my experience, and therefore the experience of a lot of people who looked like me,” she says. “I decided that if I’m going to change the landscape I may as well start with where I started, which is my family.”

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Theatre-goers will see violence and trauma in Porkalob’s family history, but they will also find joy, resilience, desire, love, hate, redemption.

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An interview with playwright Sara Porkalob about her musical Dragon Lady and how theater can be more inclusive.

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