HERE ARTS
145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013
December 3-17, 2023
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday at 8:30 pm
Saturday and Wednesday at 4:00 and 8:30 pm
Sunday at 4:00 pm
POST SHOW DISCUSSIONS
Wednesday, December 6th after the 8:30 pm show:
Annalisa Enrile: Mail-order Bride Business and Trafficking of Women
Saturday, December 9th 8.30pm:
Playwrights discuss their process of writing Export Quality.
Sun, Dec 10, after the 4:00 pm matinee show:
Trauma and Healing: Discussion with Eliza Fabillar
Runtime:
85 minutes, no intermission
Ticket Price: $35 Previews $20
Content warnings: Contains references to sexual violence.
Long blurb:
When survival means self-sacrifice, the only option for some women is to become a mail-order bride and marry a stranger from a foreign land. Inspired by true stories, Export Quality traces the harrowing journeys of four mail-order brides from the Philippines, as they experience hope and despair, love and loss, death and renewal. The play explores the complex phenomenon of the international mail-order bride industry. Does the business benefit or harm women? How do gender inequality and stereotypes feed the business? For a country like the Philippines, how does colonialism play a role? What are the power dynamics at play? Export Quality also bears witness to women’s courage, their resilience in the face of violence, and the healing power of being in community and of storytelling.
Lead Artist(s):
Written by Dorotea Mendoza, Carolyn Antonio, and Erica Miguel
Directed by Sonoko Kawahara
Featuring: Myka Cue, Cat Grey, Jill Jose, and Arianne Recto
Set Design by Joey Mendoza
Costume Design by Siena Zoë Allen
Lighting Design by Reza Behjat
Sound Design by Chai Tamayo
Projection Design by Stefania Bulbarella
Production Stage Manager: Debora Porazzi
Assistant Stage Manager: Erin Mittman
Assistant Director: Skylar Lerose
Dramaturgy: Jeremy Stoller
Producer: John Breen, Loose Change Productions
Production Manager: Lauren Parrish
EXPORT QUALITY Writers’ Statement
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.
– Arundhati Roy, writer and political activist, War Talk
This is precisely what we, the writers of Export Quality, aim to do: honor and appreciate the complexity in the stories of mail-order brides from the Philippines and resist the narrative that erases or simplifies their lived experiences.
We are grateful to Loose Change Productions, John Breen (Producer) and the production crew, to Jeremy Stoller (Dramaturg), to Sonoko Kawahara (Director) and the entire creative team she has assembled. They have taken Export Quality to unexpected places, creating a theatrical experience that deepens our collective witnessing of suffering and of the joy that finds its way through.
In these times of great peril and disinformation, we need truthful, inspiring, and courageous storytelling. Now, more than ever, we need stories that mirror and examine how we engage with the world; stories that compel us to continuously reconnect with our shared humanity.