Cherry Candy Crush

When a star is about to be born, light is compressed really, really tightly. Ali Wong would probably say ‘think holding your sphincter after taco night tight’. Then the nuclei in the light elements fuse and push out and eventually boom! Hot, loud relief! Well, something like that. The birth of the state of America today can feel like that too. But hate does not form overnight, democracy requires a steady churn with the ever present potential of curdled milk. 

America loves the cherry burst, sweet and sensational, and then it loves to throw it out. Except we can't throw out what is happening today. We birthed the issues we have today, the ones that breed in the shine of the maglite on chain link fences put up to block who we don't want to see. A psychologist I heard speaking recently said we often use a pain to push us in life, until that pain does not serve us anymore. Then we must find a joy that to do that forward movement instead. Right now, America is running on fear. 

So let's get our shit out on the table and find the positive energy to move forward. That is the premise for Stephen Chang’s play “Shitty” which debuted two years ago at the Hollywood Fringe. With an all-Asian cast, director John Weselcouh, 31, set out to make a statement with his first ever play. 

Stephen, 31, drafted the script years ago, "The premise is “A girl and guy go on three dates, she left and he left, she left poop and a love note. Shit is the most intimate part of yourself,  it’s your literal insides. To leave that on the table, here are the things I hate about myself, the things I try to hide, this is me."  

It is not about shit, it is about acceptance. “How do you accept one another? I’m disturbed by, how do we come to terms with all the shit in the world? Orlando had just happened. [I hear from some that] this play is insulting and insensitive. Why does this shit happen and how do we live with it,  how do we come to terms with it. I don’t have an answer for that.”