Funny Asian Women Kollective celebrates 10 years with an ‘Extra Quality Super Show’

CATHY WURZER: This is Minnesota Now here on MPR News. I'm Cathy Wurzer. Thanks for joining us. About 10 years ago, a trio of writers and performers came together to form the Funny Asian Women Kollective, or FAWK. They've each embarked on theater and film projects since then, but their comedy work continues and their Extra Quality Super Show is coming up next week at the Fitzgerald Theater. For a preview, here's a clip from their 2022 Super Show.

MAY LEE-YANG: I learned recently is that apparently I have privilege, right? Weird, right? I'm like, I make a living talking about how oppressed I am, OK? I'm a Hmong woman. I was born in a refugee camp. I'm less than 5 [BLEEP] feet tall.

CATHY WURZER: That's May Lee Yang, one of the founders of the Funny Asian Women Kollective. She joins us right now, along with co-founder Saymoukda Vongsay, known as Mouks to most people. Welcome to the program, both of you. How have you been?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: I've been really good. Thanks, Cathy.

MAY LEE-YANG: Yeah. Hi, Cathy. Thanks for having us.

CATHY WURZER: Thanks. Mouks, let me start with you. It's been a while since we last talked, and I should know the answer to this question. What drew you to comedy?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: I guess people have been gaslighting me or actually telling me the truth, but people say that I'm funny naturally, and so I figured that I should try to make a living out of it. I don't have aspirations of being a professional stand up comic, but if you're going to pay me, I'll do it. That's my motivation.

CATHY WURZER: OK, I like that. I like that. And you were busy earlier this month. You've actually been quite busy for the past couple of years here. Didn't you just get done with a residency at The Kennedy Center?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: Yeah, I was there a couple weeks ago. I did a solo residency. I worked on a new play as part of The Kennedy Center's Social Impact Artist in Residency program at the REACH, which is this new building. And it's very experimental. It's very open to the public. They put me in the studio where I was kind of in a fishbowl. And if I was stretching or yawning or napping or writing, people would just peer into the window and just gawk at me.

CATHY WURZER: Great.

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: It was good motivation.

CATHY WURZER: I can't even imagine. It sounds a little-- well, there's some pressure involved, obviously, with people staring at you. Say, May, tell me about yourself. Tell folks about how you two met. And then how are you working together?

MAY LEE-YANG: Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm a writer, performer, educator. I teach at the University of Minnesota in the other part of my life. But Mouks and I met 20 years ago, if you believe that, because we were both recruited to join a spoken word group. So we both met as poets. Couldn't make a living off it, so we both turned to theater. Yeah, I know. I went to theater first. I always imagined I would be a book writer, but I've said book writing is sort of-- literature is like my first love, and theater is like the hot guy who keeps taking me out. Anyway, so I kept going out, and then I told Mouks to come along for the ride. And so both of us work in theater now, and we write our own stuff. 10 years ago we wrote a collaborative show called the Hmong-Lao Friendship Play, or the Lao-Hmong Friendship Play, to commemorate 40 years of Hmong and Lao people being in the US. And then 10 years ago, we also started FAWK.

CATHY WURZER: And the Kollective has been obviously thriving since that time. What do you two want to do with it, Mouks? I mean, what's the goal with the Kollective?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: Well, our goal with FAWK has always been to create a space where we could just be ourselves and really amplify our fuller humanity and not censor each other or ourselves. And we wanted just to make a safer space. We have friends who actually do stand up comedy in the field, and they feel like sometimes it's not safe for them, either physically or emotionally or psychologically. And so for me, that's what FAWK has always been and what it will continue to be.

MAY LEE-YANG: Can I just add, Mouks? You said we. I think it's important to just name that we, which is creating a space for Asian women to have safe spaces.

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: That's right. I'm like, who's the community again? But we started off with programming comedy labs, things like that, cabarets. And now, we're moving more towards filming and podcasting, and so we want to branch out. Right, May?

MAY LEE-YANG: Yes. And I think that's about accessibility, right? There's something really beautiful about a live performance. But if people don't show up, it's over-- except for the 2022 show that we were able to capture and archive. But I think we want to have larger reach for our community in Minnesota as well as nationally, and so I think we are transitioning to making more videos, sketch work just so that people can see the work beyond the live show.

CATHY WURZER: Say, can I drill down a little bit more on the safety part of this or at least trying to find a safe space to create? What is currently-- help people out here. What is currently or what has not been safe for Asian women in this field? Can you kind of tell us a little bit more about that, Mouks or May, whoever wants to take that question?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: Yeah. We have friends who have told us that they have been assaulted physically, sexually, verbally. They face microaggressions.

MAY LEE-YANG: And this is for women across the board, so not just Asian women, but women comics.

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: Yeah. And so our space aims to just be safer. We know that it's not possible to be a completely safe space, but if we all work together--

MAY LEE-YANG: But we can guarantee we're not going to harass you on stage. That is a win for us. The one thing you can be guaranteed is we're not going to harass you. But I think there's that physical safety, right? But we're also talking about artistic safety and also psychological safety.

And I think too often, Asian women are told that there are parameters about what they can do and cannot do. When we're talking about creating a place for people to be uncensored, we have been told, you shouldn't swear, because it'll make your people look bad. Or what do your elders think? Or Asian women shouldn't be talking about those issues. And so we were just like, really? There's so many parameters. We need to just create a place where people can talk about whatever it is that they need or want to talk about.

CATHY WURZER: Mouks, talk more about that, too.

MAY LEE-YANG: What do you mean in terms of--

[LAUGHTER]

CATHY WURZER: I think what I just heard was really interesting. Have you been censored or harassed yourself, Mouks, getting up on stage?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: No, because I scare people, I guess.

[LAUGHTER]

CATHY WURZER: You're are the least scary person I know.

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: I know. I'm so cute. I'm super cute. But I think what I do experience is that-- because at that time, I represented a lot of boards. I sat on a lot of community arts boards. I would sometimes censor myself in public when I'm performing as an artist because I didn't want what I was saying to be misconstrued as, THIS is what that organization that I'm part of is saying.

And so for me, that was the censorship that I was facing. And then also sometimes, we're often told to stay in our lane. And I often ask, what does that mean? What does that mean when we have political views? What does that mean when we are also stewards of our community? For us to stay in our lane, it just doesn't make sense to me. And so FAWK has been a space where myself and other Asian women could really let it loose and express themselves in that way.

MAY LEE-YANG: I mean, we talk about everything, right? Our shows, we might talk about politics. We might talk about cultural identity. We might talk about depression. We might talk about sex. We might talk about wanting to get laid. It's all across the board. As Mouks said, it's about really creating a space to see our more nuanced humanity.

CATHY WURZER: I'm excited about the show Friday on November the 8th. So what do you have planned, May? Who's going to take the stage, and what can we expect?

MAY LEE-YANG: Yeah. So we will have a stand up comedy. We will have some live sketches. We will also premiere two short films, essentially, that we've been making that I'm really excited about. I directed one of them. And we're also going to unveil a game that FAWK has been creating.

And then we also have we're sharing the stage with Dulcé Sloan, who is an amazing comic, and she actually just recently won an Emmy award for her work as a correspondent on The Daily Show. She's a huge Korean drama fan, y'all. So anyway, it'll be really fun to have a combination of just solo shows, collaborative stuff, all the things.

CATHY WURZER: Excellent. Oh my gosh, it's been fun. May and Mouks, thanks for being on the program. We'll see you on Friday, November the 8th. How does that sound?

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: Yay. Please come.

MAY LEE-YANG: Thank you so much, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you.

SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY: Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Talk to you guys later. May Lee-Yang and Saymoukda Vongsay, co-founders of the Funny Asian Women Kollective. Their Extra Quality Super Show is next Friday, November the 8th, at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul. That, friends, is Minnesota Now for today. Hope you have a good rest of the day.