Peter Kim George
Peter Kim George is a Korean diaspora playwright born in California and based in New York. He earned his PhD in English Language and Literatures at Brown University before writing for the stage.
His plays include Empire Liquor, formerly To Red Tendons, (Ojai Playwrights Conference Dr. Kerry English Artist Award, La Jolla Playhouse DNA New Work Series, Relentless Award Honorable Mention, Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist), Men Accumulate (Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist, Princess Grace Award Semi-Finalist, NormalAve NAPseries), and Three Brothers (Ojai Playwrights Conference Finalist, Circle X Theatre Emerging Playwrights Group).
He is an alumnus of Ensemble Studio Theatre’s Youngblood and a Macdowell Fellow.
Empire Liquor
Written by Peter Kim George
Directed by Nina Dakin
September 2025
Peter Kim George and collaborators will be in residence at ArtYard this September to develop Empire Liquor, directed by Nana Dakin, culminating in a staged reading and a talkback with the playwright and creative team. This residency is a partnership between ArtYard and Brave New Works, a unique new work incubator that re-invigorates theater as a primary cultural influence by putting a new play “in conversation” with other art forms and artists. Brave New Works produces curated events with multi-disciplinary programming (cinema, dance, visual art, music, opinion, spoken word) that reflect the world of the play and its resonance in the culture at large.
Empire Liquor
Written by Peter Kim George
Directed by Nana Dakin
Empire Liquor. Los Angeles, 1991. The tragic murder of a young black girl by a Korean shopkeeper ignites deep racial divisions, fueling the LA riots.
A manor house. Scotland, 2021. Armed with cushy TV development money, a group of actors quarantine themselves to tell the Empire Liquor story.
A caustic satire about race, colonial violence, bad water pressure, and the absurdity of making art.
Cast
- Jon Norman Schnieder as Paul
- Hannah Gross as Emily
- Folami Williams as Charlotte
- Jennifer Tsay as Yolie
- Laura Sohn as Pearl
Artist collaborators
Sasha Emerson
Sasha Emerson is a dramaturg and creative consultant for numerous film and television studios, including STARZ, Sony/TriStar, Story27 (NETFLIX), and formerly AMC/Networks. A graduate of Brown University and Yale School of Drama, Emerson has held senior executive positions at CBS, HBO and New Line. Emerson spent the last 15 years as a dramaturg and Artistic Producer at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. Emerson has served on the advisory board of the Yale School of Drama for almost two decades, and recently joined the advisory board of the Paula Vogel/McCarter Theater’s digital play program, BARD AT THE GATE. She has lectured at Brown, Yale, and NYU on new play development. In addition to her literary career, Emerson has been a widely published designer for over 25 years. Her work has appeared in over 100 books and publications, often on the cover, including the NYT, House and Garden, Country Living, Elle Decor, and Metropolitan Home.
Casey Stangl
Casey Stangl is an award-winning director based in Los Angeles. Her work has been seen at theaters across the country, including South Coast Repertory, American Conservatory Theater, Guthrie Theater, Arizona Theater Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Denver Center, Portland Stage, and Cleveland Playhouse. Casey has developed work with many playwrights and directed at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Humana Festival, Pacific Playwrights Festival, and from 2015-22 was Associate Artistic Director for Ojai Playwrights Conference. A proud member of SDC, the national labor union for stage directors and choreographers, Casey recently completed three terms on SDC’s Executive Board. In addition to her work for the stage, Casey is a workshop specialist for Protagonist Events and she directs and does script adaptation on foreign language dubbing projects for Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, and Amazon. Casey serves as a voter for Tony Awards, and she is currently developing several audio fiction projects with Mumble Media.
Nana Dakin
Nana Dakin (นานา เดกิ้น) is a queer Thai American director of new work, classics, and devised performance based in New York City. Her work pursues social equity by examining the way culture is constructed and unsettling dormant biases. She is the first Thai theatre director to direct at the Royal Court Theatre in London and was the Associate Director for the four-time Tony-nominated play Mary Jane on Broadway. In New York, her work has been presented and developed at Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Company, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Ma-Yi Theater Company, The Mercury Store, New York Theatre Workshop, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Soho Rep, and more. Recent regional productions include The Chinese Lady (Everyman Theatre), Again (Theater Mu), and Eurydice (American Shakespeare Company). Nana has an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University and teaches for Randolph College’s MFA in Theatre program.
