FACE TO FACE: HMONG WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES
Mar 5–15, 2020 Written and directed by Katie Ka Vang and Sara Zats, in collaboration with the perfomers

Face to Face: Hmong Women’s Experiences is an interview-based theater production featuring five local Hmong community members, sharing their true stories on stage. Told with humor, heart, and courage, it addresses complex issues such as the history and arrival of the Hmong community in St. Paul, coming of age as a first generation Hmong American, and finding your own voice and identity while balancing cultural and family expectations.Created from extensive interviews with the cast – adapted and theatricalized – the script is woven together to tell performers’ individual experiences in a chronological narrative that connects the personal to the political. Through their stories, the cast addresses topics including mental health and depression, bullying, domestic and sexual violence, gender identity, beauty standards and more.