Silly, provocative entertainment from a perspective rarely given play in our selectively cutting-edge culture.”

— Huffington Post

Happy Lucky Golden Tofu Panda Dragon Good Time Fun Fun Show

(Warning: Some Strong Language. Adult cultural themes. Liberal Use of Hello Kitty Imagery. Puns. )

Directed by Emmy winning comedic TV star Carrie Preston (True Blood/Good Wife/Crowded). East Meets West in this live stand-up comedy, sketch, and rock n' roll/spoken word concert film focused on Asian American themes: immigration, bowl cuts, math nerds, the model minority myth. And Hello Kitty everything. The live version of the show premiered at New York's Tony Award winning theater La Mama ETC, and has played at The NY Intl. Fringe Festival, The Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, Toronto's We're Funny That Way Comedy Festival and Montreal's Festival Phenomena.

Niches: Asian, Asian American, Comedy, Spoken Word, Women, LGBTQ

HAPPY LUCKY PHOTOS

SHORT SHOW DESCRIPTION - 80 words:

#Comedy #RepresentAsian #ElectricViolin #Badass 

Warning: Strong Language. Political Commentary. Hello Kitty. Liberal use of puns. 

East meets West in a crazy mashup of stand up comedy, electric violin, political sketches, and punk rock spoken word from one of New York's most celebrated comedians and a classical virtuoso turned electric violin rocker. 

Meet @SlantyEyedMama : two good Asian girls gone bad-assed. Their material is about the  Amer-Asian experience told one story, one Hello Kitty, one gay pokemon at a time! 

LONGER SHOW DESCRIPTION – 130 words 

#Comedy #CanAsian #ElectricViolin #HelloKitty #Badass 

Warning: Strong Language. Political Commentary. Hello Kitty. Liberal use of puns. 

East meets West in a crazy mashup of stand up comedy, electric violin, political sketches, and punk rock spoken word from one of New York's most celebrated comedians and a classical virtuoso turned electric violin rocker. 

Meet @SlantyEyedMama : two good Asian girls gone bad-assed. 

This show  is an all out extravaganza of images and songs, comedy and video installation about being Asian and living in North America: identity politics, bowl cuts, Chinatown, nail salon paradoxes, Hello Kitty hats, gay pokemons, math nerds, street vendors, those gold cats with waving arms. The lineup also features songs like “MODEL MINORITY”, “WHITE GIRL PROBLEMS”, “BOWL CUT BLUES” and “THE HELLO KITTY SONG”. 

THE SHOW IN ONE SENTENCE 

A killer combination of stand up comedy, electric violin, political sketches and punk rock spoken word from two good asian girls gone bad-assed.

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Slanty Eyed Mama: two good Asian girls gone bad-assed. Virtuostic electric violinist Lyris Hung (who has also played with Jay-Z, The Indigo Girls and Bono) and Comedian/Actor Kate Rigg (who appeared on 2 seasons of the Dr. Phil Show, and recurred on Fox's Family Guy). The duo started their collaboration while still students at the Juilliard school where they began experimenting with funky urban asian spoken word, comedy and rock and roll. Upon graduation they began touring the world-- performing multimedia concerts celebrating the Asian American experience.

Invited twice to the Smithsonian Insitute with previous shows and featured on television on PBS, LOGO, Comedy Central Online, Pacific TV, and headlining major music and comedy festivals they are a force to be reckoned with! For this film, they bring their 'Nuyorasian' flow (New York streets meets Asian American style) to the stage as a live concert mashed up with edgy stand up comedy and wild sketches all shot on location around New York City.

The film takes on some of the biggest issues, racial bias, and cultural tropes which color the Asian immigrant experience.  In their signature style, Slanty Eyed Mama approach the material with a crazy sense of humor and and musical medit-asians on contemporary culture. TV Comedy star and award winning director Carrie Preston (a fellow Juilliard alum) directs with an eye for the absurd, the heartfelt themes under the music, and the immediacy of live performance for a truly unique film experience

COMPANY BIOS

CARRIE PRESTON -DIRECTOR

With her production company, Daisy 3 Pictures www.daisy3pictures.com Carrie directed the feature film, “That’s What She Said”, written by Kellie Overbey, starring Anne Heche, Marcia DeBonis, Alia Shawkat and Kate Rigg. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival where it was acquired by Phase 4 Films and distributed theatrically and on all other platforms. She also directed the feature film “29th and Gay” by James Vasquez (released by TLA) and the short film “Feet of Clay” by David Caudle. She executive produced and starred in James Vasquez’s “Ready? OK!”, which played over 50 film festivals and won numerous awards and is available on all platforms from Wolfe Video. She wrote, directed and starred in the web pilot “The Dody Show”, which had its premiere at the New York Television Festival. She directed the first season of the award winning web series “Darwin”, currently streaming online at www.darwintheseries.com 

Also a celebrated actress, Carrie played sassy southern waitress Arlene Fowler on the hit HBO series “True Blood” and the quirky genius lawyer Elsbeth Tascioni on CBS’s “The Good Wife”, for which she won an Emmy Award in 2013. She also recurs on “Person of Interest” and is currently starring in the new NBC comedy “Crowded”. 

Her many films include “Virginia”, “That Evening Sun”, “A Bag of Hammers”, “Duplicity”, “Doubt”, “Vicky Christina Barcelona”, “Lovely by Surprise”, “Towelhead”, “Transamerica”, “Straight-Jacket”, “Mercury Rising” and “My Best Friends Wedding”.

KATE RIGG - COMEDY / SONGS

Comedy sens-Asian Kate Rigg graduated from the prestigious Juilliard school of drama before turning her passion for clever quips, bizarre characters and kooky jokes into a hilarious life as a stand up comic and character comedian. 

Kate's stand-up career has taken her from coast to coast with her edgy off the wall takes on pop culture, politics and multiculturalism and her ability to chat to almost anyone about anything.

She has performed at the prestigious Montreal Comedy Festival, The Vancouver Comedy Festival, The Perth International Festival, The Marshalls Women in Comedy Festival, and performed stand up PBS, LOGO, Showtime, Comedy Central, CTV, Vh1, CBC and City TV. After serving on a panel on Race in America she was invited to be the comedic correspondent for seasons 8 and 9 of the Dr. Phil show, with numerous appearances and hilarious man on the street interviews. She has done voices for Fox's Family Guy, recurred on Law and Order and hosted numerous events-- from the hallowed halls of the Kennedy Center, LA Grand Performances and International festivals --all the way to back room bars in towns across North America. She starred in and executive produced "The Naughty Show" Bad Girls of Comedy DVD released on Eagle Rock's Comedy Label, and also was the creator executive producer of the hit shows "Dance Your Ass Off" on Oxygen TV and "Gonzo Girlz" on RIPE TV, and the wacky comedy adventure show "Cache Craze" for YTV-Canada and Disney XD. 

 

LYRIS HUNG - ELECTRIC VIOLIN

Lyris began her violin studies at the age of 3 in the exotic wilds of Fairfield County, Connecticut. At 11, she was accepted into the Juilliard Pre-College Division and at 17, she started a double-degree program between the Juilliard School and Columbia University where she earned a B.A. in Anthropology and Music from Columbia and an M.M. in Violin Performance from Juilliard. 

At college, Lyris was active in contemporary music performance, playing regularly with the New Juilliard Ensemble and at the Museum of Modern Arts Summergarden concerts. She worked as Musical Director of many musical productions at Columbia, where she also studied composition and electronic music. At Juilliard during that time, she performed with a number of stellar conductors such as James DePriest, Kurt Masur, Pierre Boulez, and Bobby McFerrin, and toured Japan and Korea with the Juilliard Orchestra. 

Since then, Lyris has become an active session violinist in NYC, performing and recording with artists from many genres. She has been heard on Bryan Adams' MTV Unplugged, live with Bono and Quincy Jones at the 1999 NetAid concert, live with the 2003 Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and has toured Europe and America with RCA recording artist Ke. She has also played with hip-hop giant Jay-Z and Beyoncé with ?Love of the Roots, Dan Zanes, Ornette Coleman, Toshi Reagon, and many others. She tours regularly with the Indigo Girls. 

Lyris also has a progressive death metal band HUNG which has released several records, most recently on The End Records.See less

Production Notes!

Hyphenates in da house 

The entire creative team for this movie and show is comprised of hyphenate women. Carrie Preston is an accomplished award winning actor as well as a director and producer of feature, web series and tv. Kate Rigg is an actor comedian who fronts the band Slanty Eyed Mama and is also a creative Executive Producer who co-created the hit Oxygen show "Dance Your Ass Off" and the Disney XD / YTV Canada adventure comedy show "Cache Craze". Lyris Hung currently tours with the Indigo Girls, is an executive at D'Addario strings and has a death metal band named after her for which she plays lead violin. 

The Ching Chong Song 

We always think long and hard about writing about racial language because it is a powerful trigger for both Asian and non Asian audiences. One of the most incendiary racial incidents in our history was the killing of Vincent Chin by racist off duty cops who assumed he was Japanese, and it being Detroit, was indirectly responsible for auto workers losing their jobs. He was in fact Chinese and out at his bachelor party. The song is about the willful ignorance of individual's humanity and story by lumping them into a preconceived notion of "asian-ness" where "all asians are the same "Other", symbolized by words like Ching Chong. In the Vincent Chin story, he actually WAS chinese but still a victim of racial ignorance based on this "everyone the same" and bearing the threat of "other"ness, ironically where being known to be chinese might have saved him. 

Neighborhood locations in New York 

Our nail salon and dry cleaner locations were donated by neighborhood businesses near where Kate lives. With a little extra coaxing and cold hard cash we were able to shoot beautiful interiors for the Ballad of Long Phuong Anh, and the Performance Artist scenes. We actually got our nails done while shooting the video. And paid. Because we didn't want to geography in the nail salon while we shot. 

Our coolest Audience 

Since this show happened in New York you never know who was going to be in the audience. Our coolest audience had cast from Orange is the New Black, Rosie O'Donnell and international human rights activist Kasha Nebagasara. If you look in the crowd shots you can see Big Boo from Orange is the New Black cheering some of the big moments in the show. Every night we did a raffle after the show of odd prizes from Kate's stash of Asian themed knick knacks, and one of the nights Rosie O Donnell won a giant Hello Kitty balloon. Which she told us she was bringing home to her daughter and would make her a hero for the day. 

Our Director's insane schedule 

Carrie Preston, the director of this show, and very busy actress, had to organize her time around shooting her final episode of Good Wife with her new NBC sitcom Crowded, giving us Skype direction on the fly, managing her crew sometimes on two hours sleep and trekking to Queens in the snow to finish post before flying first class back to Los Angeles to do press for her tv shows. 

BOWL CUT BLUES 

We decided to to an homage to Bowl Cuts, a particular talking point among asians slash our secret shame as children. Most Asian Americans are intimately acquainted with the art of the bowl on head instant haircut well into their pre-teens. In the song Bowl Cut blues the video installation includes stills of bowl cuts from Asian American fans of Slanty Eyed Mama including pics of both Kate and Lyris as young children sporting epic bowl cuts.

Trailer

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