A surreal, semi-autobiographical comedy about a playwright searching for her missing father in Chinatown.
King of the Yees follows Lauren, a New York playwright, whose father Larry has spent nearly two decades as a central figure in the Yee Fung Toy Family Association, a fraternal organization rooted in San Francisco's Chinatown. Where Larry sees the association as a living connection to community and heritage, Lauren regards it as a fading institution with little relevance to her own life. When Larry suddenly vanishes, Lauren embarks on a surreal journey through the history and mythology of her own family lineage in search of him.
The play is written by Lauren Yee, a Signature Theatre resident artist, who draws on her own family and background to construct a comedic and fantastical narrative about inheritance, identity, and what it means to belong to a name. The work blends humor with magical realism to examine the tensions between generations and the stories families carry forward.