Chye-Ling Huang

Chye-Ling Huang is a Chinese-Pākehā director, writer and actor based in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her practice as a creator and performer, which spans both stage and screen, is reinforced by her role presenting work by and supporting the development of Asian practitioners through her company, Proudly Asian Theatre (PAT), alongside advocacy for “professional Asian visibility, empowerment and centering stories of queer POC.”

Born to a Malaysian-born Chinese father and a New Zealand mother of Irish descent, Huang graduated from Unitec’s acting degree in 2012 — the same year as Filipino New Zealand actor, comedian and writer James Roque, whom she co-founded PAT with in 2013. With its purpose originating from “two Asian actors who recognised a void and endeavoured to fill it,” PAT has evolved to not only produce original and remounted productions by Asian artists, but also mentor emerging Asian creatives alongside advocacy for better representation and opportunities for its creative community.

Huang’s role at PAT extends to her leadership in the arts and screen sector, particularly around diversity and inclusion. Commenting on racism and stereotyping in the industry in 2018, she observed, “we can write articles about it, we can whine about it on Facebook – but the fact of the matter is, if you’re not in there doing it, creating it for yourself, then things won’t change because people won’t see it.” Huang’s fostering of talent through PAT was one example of readdressing the balance, to which she added, “often people will say, ‘I just don’t know any people of colour, women writers or Asian writers,’ but you have the responsibility as a person in a position of power to turn the tide. It’s not going to happen on its own and the work will be better for it.”

In September 2019, Huang wrote a widely shared and discussed Facebook post criticising Auckland Theatre Company’s practice of hiring predominantly white actors and creatives. Triggered by the company’s season of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern — a production she described in Frances Walsh’s 2023 book Backstage Pass: Stories from thirty years of Auckland Theatre Company as “the epitome of everything I’ve been fuming on for the last five or so years” — Huang’s action resulted in ATC’s re-engagement with PAT. (Previous proposal meetings between PAT and ATC had come to nothing.) Chinese-Australian writer Michelle Law’s Single Asian Female, the first East Asian work to be included in ATC’s main programme, followed, opening in April 2021.

Huang and PAT collaborated with ATC on recontextualising the play for Aotearoa, finding its cast and director, and through consultation, providing a safe space for the team to work within. Writing for The Spinoff, Sam Brooks noted PAT’s presence “allow[ed] the director and cast to focus on actually making the work, rather than dealing with the awkward conversations around it,” with the company advising on everything from “who to invite, what food to serve, what sort of marketing is tokenistic.” Brooks also acknowledged Huang’s Facebook post and Single Asian Female as “chang[ing] the trajectory of Auckland’s biggest theatre company.” In the following years, main stage presentations of Scenes from a Yellow Peril (2022), Basmati Bitch (2023) and a mixtape for maladies (2024) were programmed by ATC — all new works by Asian theatremakers in Aotearoa.

The timing of PAT’s involvement with ATC — which coincided with the first changeover of artistic directors in 18 years — and the disappointment of this collaboration not growing into a more substantial partnership has led Huang to focus on other avenues for serving the Asian community. Huang and PAT more recently have teamed up with the Pan-Asian Screen Collective (PASC), Black Creatives Aotearoa and Alif Theatre to create professional development opportunities for actors, writers and producers.

PAT celebrated its 10-year anniversary on 12 February 2024 with an event as part of Q Theatre’s Summer at Q season — and has since announced a short break from its usual programme to work on the company's sustainability and business strategy. Prior to this, as PAT’s Creative Director, Huang had overseen the presentation of 11 shows, most recently How to Throw a Chinese Funeral in October 2023. She acted in the company’s debut production FOB, as well as Lantern, Roots, Tide Waits for No Man: Episode GRACE and Call of the Sparrows, which she also wrote. She directed Roots and Orientation, the latter from her own original script.

Huang’s first work as a playwright, Black Tree Bridge, was developed through Silo Theatre’s Working Titles programme for women writers in 2013 and then revived in 2020 as part of PAT’s Fresh off the Page initiative — an ongoing series of play readings of new work by Asian playwrights. Although the live reading was cancelled due to concerns around COVID-19, Black Tree Bridge was produced as a radio play and continues to evolve. Using biracial identity to “explore how we might reconcile the binaries of myth, culture and reality to find meaning in our lives,” the play was more recently updated through rewrites and an exhibition/performance piece as part of Huang’s 2023 residency at the Chinese European Arts Centre Residence in Xiamen, China.

Like Black Tree Bridge, Huang’s “exemplary imagination” as a writer was on full display in her first play to be produced, Call of the Sparrows (2016). Blending shadow play, masks and fantasy elements, the work was praised by Nathan Joe for its “deep understanding of visual storytelling” and Huang’s world building. Her next play, Orientation (2018), returned more explicitly to themes of race and identity while foregrounding a key interest of Huang’s work: exploring sexuality through an Asian diaspora lens. Huang’s first foray into filmmaking, the Loading Docs short Asian Men Talk About Sex (2017), featured conversations with everyday Asian men in Aotearoa in an effort to challenge stereotypes and normalise sexuality in Asian men. She also directed Nathan Joe’s play Like Sex in 2017, and co-created The Elephant in the Bedroom in 2022, a podcast/web series with James Roque in which the pair openly discuss sex, love and race.

After Asian Men Talk About Sex, Huang’s Asian-centred screen work expanded into the creation of the TVNZ web series The Han Chronicles, based on her father’s immigration to Aotearoa in the 1970s; producing Three Dots (2021) by Alyssa Medel, a short film about the lives of three Asian women during the COVID-19 pandemic; writing, directing and acting in The Space of an Afternoon (2022), a short film shot in Bangkok and Tāmaki Makaurau; and writing and directing the pilot for Happiness is the Path (2023), part of PASC’s Episode One web series initiative. As a screen actor, she’s best known for her Shortland Street role as ambulance officer Theodora ‘Theo’ Chang (2020–21) and more recently appeared in fellow actor, writer and theatremaker Sam Wang’s TV series Homebound 3.0 (2023).

Chye-Ling Huang at Proudly Asian Theatre

Chye-Ling Huang on her three-month residency at the Chinese European Arts Centre Residence — Asia New Zealand Foundation

As playwright:

2018 — Orientation (also as director), Q Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2016 — Call of the Sparrows (also as actor), Herald Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2016–23 — Black Tree Bridge, Auckland Arts Festival, Q Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau (2016, play reading); Proudly Asian Theatre/Fresh off the Page (2020, radio play); Chinese European Arts Centre, Xiamen (2023, exhibition/performance piece)

As theatre director:

2018 — Roots, Q Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2017 — Like Sex, Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau

As theatre actor:

2019 — Tide Waits for No Man: Episode GRACE, Auckland Fringe Festival, Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2015 — The Mooncake and the Kūmara, Auckland Arts Festival, Q Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau; national tour, Oamaru, Whakatū, Kirikiriroa
2014 — Lantern, Maidment Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
2013 — FOB, Basement Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau

As creator:

2023 — Happiness is the Path (web series, pilot episode, as writer and director), PASC Episode One initiative
2022 — The Elephant in the Bedroom (podcast and web series, as co-creator), RNZ
2022 — The Space of an Afternoon (short film, as writer, director and actor)
2019 — Life is Easy (web series, as writer and actor), Revry/TVNZ
2018 — The Han Chronicles (web series), TVNZ
2017 — Asian Men Talk About Sex (short film, as director), Loading Docs

As producer:

2021 — Three Dots, Asia New Zealand Foundation IN TOUCH arts commission