THE GALLERY SERIES
SCHUBERT WAS A RICE QUEEN
a new work by Jeremy Rafal
directed by Dennis Yueh-Yeh LiÂ
Testing the boundaries of solo performance and new artistic territory, early, never-before-seen experimental work finds a home in front of an audiences for the first time,
Â
THE GALLERY SERIES champions the unique potential of the individual performer and challenges artists to craft ambitious explorations of the specific and intimate relationship between solo performers and spectators.
Â
Artists with highly experimental, combustible, pliable works receive up to 25 hours of rehearsal and two nights of performances in our intimate Gallery, for audiences of no more than 20 people as a catalyst for future development
Â
Theaterlab invites you to join Jeremy Rafal as he develops his never before seen work, Schubert Was a Rice Queen
Vienna, 1828. Composer Franz Schubert is dying, but not without throwing one last party. Re-introducing himself as an Aquarius, tea-spiller, and musical genius, he recollects the life of an artist in post-Napoleonic Vienna under Metternich, where anything erotic, foreign, or new is treated as a political threat. Souvenirs from the Orient become portals to imagined queer histories through piano performance, puppetry, and scandalous reminiscence, recasting Schubert as history’s unwritten rice queen.
Schubert Was a Rice Queen is an immersive solo show that blends cabaret, puppet fantasia, and live recital, featuring some of Schubert’s most beloved works, from his piano sonatas and impromptus to Lieder such as Erlkönig and Ständchen.
PERFORMANCES
Friday, March 13 at 7:30pmÂ
Sunday, March, 15 at 5:00pm
Approx. total time : 60 minutes
All ticket tiers provide the same level of access to the performance.
Please make your purchase according to your needs.
General Admission: $25.00Â
True Cost : $45.00
Access : $20.00Â
Click HERE to purchase your ticket.
If you are able to financially support The Gallery Series, or any of our programs supporting NYC’s most daring artists, click here to give a tax-deductible gift of any amount.Â
MEET THE ARTISTS
JEREMY RAFAL (CREATOR/PERFORMER)
Jeremy Rafal was born in the Philippines, raised in Hawaii, and is now a New York based multi-hyphenate artist: actor, musician, writer, filmmaker, and educator. His solo play The Boy from Bantay has recently garnered international recognition, receiving the Asian Arts Award for Outstanding Male Performer at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.Â
His playwriting credits include his short play Where Voices Linger (Kinsman Quarterly Holiday Playwright Contest Prizewinner; Chain Theatre Festival), Funhouse Funk (Decent Company, NY Theater Fest), and Waiting (Take 10 Fest). As a screenwriter, his film Exit 15 won Best Short Film and Best Screenplay at the Southeast Asian Film Festival and was an official selection at the SOHO International Film Festival, HAAPI Fest, and the All-Asian Independent Film Festival. As an actor, stage credits include Galas (The Little Island), Heart Strings (Atlantic Theatre), The King & I (Interlakes Theatre), Machinal (The Mechanicals), Maple and Vine (Constellation Stage and Screen), among others. Film and TV credits include FBI, Raising Kanan, The Hunting Party, Law & Order, among others.Â
As a classical pianist, Jeremy is a prizewinner of the International Shostakovich Piano Competition, Brevard Piano Competition, and the Kankakee Concerto Competition. He has performed internationally in Italy, Russia, Austria, Taiwan, the Philippines, and throughout the United States. Jeremy holds a doctorate in music from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and continues to create work at the intersection of music, storytelling, and the Filipino diaspora.
DENNIS YUEH-YEH LI (DIRECTOR)
Dennis Yueh-Yeh Li is a director/playwright. His works explore sexuality, power structure and diaspora experiences, culminating often in devised, immersive and participatory theatre. Dennis excels at adapting modern classics, connecting them with timely sociopolitical issues. His directorial portfolio spans across plays, musical theatre, and opera. His works were presented at New Ohio Theatre, Dixon Place, Judson Memorial Church, and Theater for the New City, among others. Master’s in Performance Studies, NYU.
Dennis is an alumnus of Drama League’s New York Directing Fellowship, Target Margin Theater’s Institute Fellowship, and a member of Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. Dennis was the Associate Artistic Director at  The Living Theatre and is Al LĂmite Collective’s founding member. www.dennisyuehyehli.
MARIA CAMIA (PUPPETRY)
Maria Camia is a Brooklyn based Filipino-American Visual Theatre Artist and Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner. She intends to make imagination useful in a traumatized society with her created world of Aricama, the land of practice play and healing. She has performed original productions for JACK, Chicago International Puppet Festival, Dixon Place, La MaMa, and Kino Saito. Maria received the Jim Henson Workshop and Production Grants for her full length shows NEW MONY! And The Healing Shipment. When Maria is not making art, she is an Introspective Hypnosis Practitioner which means she guides clients one-on-one through past memories to release the stuck energies and to bring in more empowerment into the body.
KAI IRINA HAHN (GERMAN COACH)
Kai Irina Hahn is a Brooklyn based German-American director, actress, producer, performance artist, and published playwright. She worked as an actress/assistant director for the Freilichtspiele Schwäbisch Hall and the Staatsschauspiel Dresden in Germany, directed numerous plays, and toured as the Production Manager of Andre Heller’s Circus Show “Afrika Afrika” all over Europe. Kai’s focus is on international, interactive theater, mythology, and ritual. In Germany, her work was presented at Kunsthaus Tacheles, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, and the international directors’ festival, in England at the Grotowski Symposium in Canterbury, among others. Since 2015, she has been the artistic director and producer of the immersive show “The Gothic Vampire Cruise on the Hudson” in NYC. Kai mastered in theater at the Free University Berlin, Germany and studied in Leipzig, Germany (BA) and Paris, France (scholarship). She has led workshops on mythology, immersive theater, and character development in Germany, the UK & India.
COVID-19 policy: In guidance with the city and state COVID-19 policies, we will no longer be requiring masks, but strongly recommend them.