Date of Interview: 28 August 2025
Interviewer: Tiurlan Sitompul
Interviewee: Amy Ng
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
So can you state for the sake of the interview, what is your name?
AMY NG
My name is Amy Ng, and I’m a playwright.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
How did your journey with New Earth Theatre begin?
AMY NG
Oh, wow. I’ve been involved with New Earth Theatre for more than ten years. I’d say the first time I came into contact with them was 2014. I remember that it was because it was one week before my second child was born. So it was a memorable time for me. And it was a playwriting workshop that was run by Drayton Hiers, who at that time was the literary associate at New Earth, Yellow Earth at the time. And we workshopped like a scene from a play of mine called Acceptance that ended up being produced in 2018. So that was my first contact with New Earth. And then in 2016 my first play was produced, and that play was called Shangri-La. It was produced at the Finborough Theatre. Yellow Earth came on board as a co-producer, and they’ve co-produced a lot of my plays since. So my third play, Under the Umbrella, was also toured by Yellow Earth after it had its premiere at Belgrade, Coventry and my adaptation of Miss Julie at Chester Storyhouse was also toured by Yellow Earth. It was interrupted by the pandemic and the tour took place in 2021. And I also took part in a year long professional writer’s programme with them, and I’m now working with the new artistic director, Ailin Conant, on another project called The Body Fisher, which is a co-production between New Earth and Fengling Productions. So yeah, it’s, um, a lot of plays that we’ve worked on together.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
So with all your experiences in what ways has New Earth influenced or shaped your personal or professional growth?
AMY NG
As you know, I mean New Earth is the oldest British East Asian theatre company in Britain. So I guess what was really valuable for me with my association with Yellow Earth/New Earth is that I didn’t feel I had to justify telling Asian stories. I’m from Hong Kong and my plays do tend to be quite Hong Kong or China focused. And so I think in a lot of mainstream theatre, you do have to kind of justify, oh, well, you know, it might be of interest to audiences in Asia or like the British East Asian audiences, but why is it important? And I never had that conversation with New Earth, which is quite validating. I also got to know a lot of British East Asian theatre creatives. So other playwrights, actors, directors through New Earth. You know, really finding a community and not feeling quite so alone. And, you know, one of the questions that you do get asked when you have a conversation with a producing venue is we love your play, you know, great, there are like eight roles or East Asian actors, can we cast it? Where are these actors going to come from? And because I have been involved in this community for so long I can be like, well, here’s a list of names. So it’s very useful to have that resource that I think would be the main thing.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
Is there any special moment that you remember that you really feel like New Earth as your family?
AMY NG
So during Covid, I got together with some other playwrights of colour. It was just an informal friendship group, but we discussed a lot of things about theatre. One of which was dramaturgy. So I think we all had the common experience that, you know, sometimes you’re telling a story from your own community and then you develop it with the theatre, and the literary department isn’t quite getting it because they’re trying to fit it into like a different model of playwriting or a different story structure, a three act structure, you know, quite a Eurocentric way of looking at stories. And so we came up with this framework that we hope that theatres could use, you know, when they were developing works with playwrights from the global majority. And Kumiko stepped up, you know, and I told her about it and was like, well, yeah, we want to be involved. And they hosted a huge Zoom meeting, um, with, you know, a lot of theatre literary departments and playwrights, you know, just specifically on that question. And they did that together with Tiata Fahodzi, which is a black British theatre organisation. And I did feel at that point, yes it was just so important to have that structural support from an NPO organisation. And yeah, so that I think is a highlight for me.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
How would you describe New Earth’s approach to storytelling and representation?
AMY NG
I mean, I think one of the things about the constituency that New Earth represents is that it is so wide, so it’s East and Southeast Asian. So, you know, it’s everything from China, Japan, Korea to the Philippines. I think one of the strengths is that it doesn’t have a template about how stories should be told. It also represents different generations. So they’re like first generation immigrants like me. Then there are, you know, second and third generation East Asian and Southeast Asians that are born in Britain. So there isn’t one way of telling a story. And I think New Earth is very alive to that.
People approach their Asian heritage differently, and therefore there has to be a multiplicity of like how you tell stories. So I’d say that’s one very important thing. The other is what, a lot of theatres by now, you know, wouldn’t yellow face in casting. You know, they will get East or Southeast Asian actors to act in East and Southeast Asian roles. But I think what New Earth does differently is that it would really look at the creative team as well. So obviously the writer, the director, the set designer, lighting, music, because that’s all really important. And those are all ways of telling a story.
It’s very helpful when you have some understanding of the cultural worlds from which the story is told amongst the other creatives in the team, so I’d say that’s something that distinguishes, those two things distinguish New Earth from other theatre companies.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
How New Earth contributed to the visibility of British East and Southeast Asian artists and their stories?
AMY NG
Well, the most direct way is that they produce work. I mean, for so many years, they were a touring company. I think that’s really important because in London you can see works from East and Southeast Asian stories of East and Southeast Asian people. But I think it’s much rarer in the regions. And Kumiko really took it to heart that their remit was tours, you know, even to predominantly white regions. You know, it was important to tell these stories there. So I think that’s one very concrete way that they increase representation in the British East Asian landscape. And I’d say their third strand is, you know, they have the academies. They’re investing in emerging talents. And so even if they cannot produce all the shows of emerging artists, they support them to make their own Arts Council applications, introduce them to other venues, support their professional development so that later, when they become mid-career artists, they can produce their shows. So I think the pipeline, the talent pipeline is also another very concrete way that they increase representation. And then I’d say finally it’s advocacy. You know, it is pointing out what’s problematic. You know, in the general British theatre landscapes, if there were any more instances of yellow facing, I mean, I think the most recent one I can remember was 2018, 2019, in a smaller venue in London. And yeah, they cast for white people for a story that was set in ancient China. So things like that New Earth would step up and be like, well guys, this is not okay. So that advocacy is yet another way.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
So during your experience, have you witnessed a shift in the industry because of the work New Earth has done?
AMY NG
I think progress in theatre tends to be two steps forward and one step back. So I’m not really sure I would say, oh, you know, there’s a before and after moment. I do feel there was a real difference in the time when Yellow Earth had lost its NPO funding. And then till now, when it’s like an established player again, because they have the ability to make things happen on their own without other theatres coming on board as co-producers.
So I think there’s definitely been a change that way. I do feel that there are more East and Southeast Asian stories now, ever since they regained the NPO funding, and there’s maybe more respect and more awareness of talent, which there wasn’t before. I also think that, you know, in the ten years that I’ve been working as a playwright, there’re definitely more East and Southeast Asian playwrights being programmed by big mainstream theatres as well. And a lot of this is down to the professional development by New Earth as well. But, you know, I wish I could say there was a huge quantum leap. The reality is that, you know, budgets are kind of shrinking and global majority stories are seen as more risky. So there are lots of external factors to why the shift hasn’t been as great as all of us would like it to be.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
During your experience, is there any particular challenge or difficult moment during your time working with New Earth and how you navigate it?
AMY NG
I think historically, the East and South-East Asian theatre community has been quite divided and driven by personal and professional animosities. I think there has been a portion of the community that saw Yellow Earth as a gatekeeper to like, what kind of stories can be told from the East and Southeast Asian communities. And, you know, maybe without enough appreciation of if you only have a limited budget, there is only one production a year. So I think there’s definitely been some of that. I think it’s always the case when you only have one NPO company representing an entire community. Then you quickly get into what, like who’s being represented, which segment of the community is being ignored. And also, there were a lot of personal factors and just real hostility. And I think that was really challenging for the Yellow Earth artistic leadership to navigate.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
In what ways has the company evolved, especially in relation with inclusion, access or advocacy?
AMY NG
Looking on from the outside it seems to me that under this new leadership, there’s a lot more awareness of how diverse the communities are and just how different first and second and third generation East and Southeast Asian artists are. And I think there’s a real will power to do justice to the breadth of experience in this community. And I think there’s a real specificity now to like, who’s being invited into the room on which projects to try to be, I guess, bring in more authenticity.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
What does it mean now, you are to be a part of New Earth’s legacy for thirty years?
AMY NG
I’m very honored to have been asked to contribute, even though I’ve been working with us for more than ten years. As I said, you know, I’m not on their board, I’m not on their artistic leadership. So I’m honored that they value this relationship enough to ask me to be involved. I’m really excited about the new ideas and the new direction coming out.
I would really love to see more unity and also more respect for diversity within the East and Southeast Asian theater community in Britain, which may sound contradictory, but what I mean by unity is that we don’t just all like, you know, quarrel with each other all the time.
But then respect for diversity is like awareness that a story about Mongolia is going to be really different from a story about Cambodia and really to drill down on what that means, like who should be involved in telling each story. So I’m really excited by this. I’m excited that New Earth is really thinking through its strategies and its options while working with mainstream theatre partners. So I think there’s some very smart thinking. Just as I said, looking on from the outside, just very smart thinking about how to leverage the limited budget that New Earth has for maximum impact. So yeah, those are things I’m really excited about.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
Now what are your hopes for the next generation of the British East Asian, Southeast Asian artists for the future?
AMY NG
Yellow Earth was formed as far as I know, in the mid nineties, which I wasn’t around then, but it was formed because there were so few career pathways for East and Southeast Asian artists. So they were like, well, we’re just going to do it ourselves.
I’m hoping that as the entire landscape gets more diverse that that won’t be as necessary. So it’s not that I’m like, oh, well, you know, I hope that the theatre landscape evolves into a New Earth is no longer necessary, but I hope that the landscape evolves so that New Earth is not the only place where careers can be made as an East and Southeast Asian artist, if you’re just starting out now.
I mean, I think there will always be a place for New Earth. For advocacy, you know, for a talent pipeline development that’s very tailored to a specific community and with those cultural sensitivities, you know. So a lot of first generation immigrant parents will be very nervous about their children going to the arts. That’s something that other talent development programmes attached to big theatres might not take into account. And also, I think there are lots of people that come into the arts later when they’re from our communities because they’ve done the right thing, their parents said, you know, be a doctor or a lawyer or do something safe, and they give that a go for like ten years, and then they come into the arts. So they’re coming in later in their thirties. They’ve saved some money, maybe even in their forties.
And I think there’s always going to be a place for New Earth, for understanding those specifics of that landscape. But I do hope that it’s not the only place, because it’s a very lonely place to be. I do hope that New Earth will be working more as an amplifier than as a sole channel.
So yeah, that’s kind of my hope for the next generation of East and Southeast Asian artists and New Earth as they go forward.
TIURLAN SITOMPUL
Do you have any message for someone who is discovering New Earth for the first time? What would you say?
AMY NG
First of all, it’s really understandable that the parents don’t want them to do this because it is very difficult to make a living as an artist. So I think it’s quite important to acknowledge that reality. But that said, we who are artists are driven to do this by passion and because we just can’t envision doing anything else really.
You know, this is our path. So that said, being Asian doesn’t make you less entitled to an artistic path, so you have every right to go on this path and pursue this dream. And it’s not something that’s Western, that’s white, you know, because all the countries represented by New Earth, all these different heritages, all of them have a really rich theatrical tradition of their own.
And that may be forgotten, you know, by like first generation immigrants, they come over, they have to work so hard to just make a whole new existence. So I think that people forget their own artistic heritages, so they shouldn’t come at it like, oh, we’re just trying to make our way in this very white theater industry. It’s more like, well, you know, we know it’s hard, but we are artists and we come from these immensely rich theatrical traditions ourselves, and we have a lot to contribute. So I guess I’d say something like that.