Alvin Eng

Alvin Eng is a native NYC playwright, performer and educator. His plays and performances have been seen Off-Broadway, throughout the U.S., as well as in Paris, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China. His memoir, Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond, was published in May 2022 by Fordham University Press. Eng is the author and editor of the oral history/play anthology, Tokens? The NYC Asian American Experience on Stage. No Passport Press recently published Three Trees, the first of his Portrait Plays series of historical dramas about artists. He was awarded a 2022 LMCC Creative Engagement grant for a “Hong Kong Handover: 25 Years Later” symposium in conjunction with his acoustic punk raconteur solo show, Here Comes Johnny Yen Again (or How I Kicked Punk).

Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond

June 13, 2022May 20, 2022 By Alvin Eng

Our Laundry, Our Town (Empire State Editions, 2022) is a memoir that decodes and processes the fractured urban oracle bones of Alvin Eng’s growing up in Flushing, Queens, a neighborhood of that singular universe that was New York City in the 1970s. As a theatre practitioner and professor, Alvin discovered the under-chronicled Chinese influence on Thornton Wilder’s seminal Americana drama, Our Town.

Creating Auto-Ethnography For The Stage And Page

July 16, 2018April 28, 2017 By Muna Tseng and Alvin Eng

Playwright/performer Alvin Eng and author/choreographer Muna Tseng will read from and discuss their current theatrical/literary projects, OUR LAUNDRY, OUR TOWN and IT’S ALL TRUE: GRANDFATHER. OUR LAUNDRY, OUR TOWN is Eng’s prose expansion of his memoir monologue, “The Last Emperor of Flushing.” The memoir chronicles his growing up in the shadows of the Cold War in a … Read more

Three Trees: Alberto Giacometti’s Art as Theatre and History

June 20, 2017March 15, 2013 By Alvin Eng and Laurie Wilson

Playwright Alvin Eng and Art Historian Laurie Wilson will discuss Eng’s play, “Three Trees,” a historical drama that explores the unique relationship between 20th century Parisian artist, Alberto Giacometti, and his muse/model, Japanese Existential Philosopher, Isaku Yanaihara. The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre will present the World Premiere of this play at the West End Theare, … Read more

The Last Emperor of Flushing’s Final Manifesto

June 19, 2017October 17, 2008 By Alvin Eng

Alvin Eng is playwright, performer and adjunct Professor of Creative Writing on the English Department faculties of John Jay, BMCC and Fordham. He will be reading from “THE LAST EMPEROR of FLUSHING’S FINAL MANIFESTO–An Imperial Memoir in Queens English”–the prose adaptation of his acclaimed memoir monologues, The Flushing Cycle and The Last Emperor of Flushing. … Read more

The Flushing Cycle and Other Works

January 18, 2017March 21, 2003 By Alvin Eng

With recent accomplishments including editing and compiling a play anthology and oral history entitled “Tokens? The NYC Asian American Experience,” and the upcoming publication of excerpts from his memoir monologue entitled “The Flushing Cycle” in the Spring 2003 issue of the Performing Arts Journal, Prof. Alvin Eng will share some insight on his experiences, as … Read more