Nomad Motel

Full-length
Drama
2f, 3m

Overview

Alix lives in a tiny motel room with her mother and two brothers, scrabbling to make weekly rent. Mason lives comfortably in a grand, empty house while his father runs jobs for the Hong Kong Triad. Until the day his father disappears and Mason has to figure out how to come up with grocery money and dodge Child Services and the INS. Mason and Alex develop the most tentative of friendships, struggling to survive, and trying to outrun the mistakes of their parents. Will they make it out or fall through the cracks? A play about Motel Kids and Parachute Kids raising themselves and living at the poverty line in a land of plenty.

Casting & Production

Casting

CHARACTER LIST

2F, 3M

MASON, 17, Chinese American in a black hoodie—a lonely, misunderstood musical prodigy.

JAMES, 45, strapping, cocky, leather jacket, perfectly coiffed hair, from Hong Kong.

FIONA, 42, a gorgeous and cultured blonde former Huntington Beach gal.

ALIX, 17, a scrappy survivor who’s bigger than the town she’s from.

OSCAR, 17, a dude of color, aqua blue dreadlocks, a modern day Basquiat, gregarious, a dreamer.

Production Notes

An SCR Time Warner CrossRoads Commission
2015 O’Neill Playwrights Conference
National New Play Network Showcase of New Plays
Atlantic Theatre Company’s Mixfest
NNPN Rolling World Premiere at City Theatre Company, Unicorn Theatre Company and NY Premiere at Atlantic Theater Company

Reviews

“You’ll care for these characters, because Ms. Ching writes roles that actors enjoy playing…because she works from a place of genuine curiosity about who we are and how we got to be that way.”

—New York Times