Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis

Byron Au Yong (composer) and Aaron Jafferis (writer) created Stuck Elevator (American Conservatory Theater, International Festival of Arts & Ideas) and (Be)longing, a.k.a. Trigger (Virginia Tech Moss Arts Center, MDC Live Arts, International Festival of Arts & Ideas). Current projects include Activist Songbook (Asian Arts Initiative, Montalvo Arts Center). Other projects include Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas (Bumbershoot Festival of the Arts, Jack Straw New Media Gallery, Seattle Symphony Day of Music, Town Hall Seattle) and Surrender: A T’ai Qi Cantata (commissioned by The Esoterics). Au Yong and Jafferis have been in artists-in- residence at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, New York Theatre Workshop at Dartmouth, three Sundance Institute Theatre Labs, TheatreWorks, Westminster Choir College, Weston Playhouse, Wing Luke Museum, and Yale Institute for Music Theater. Honors include awards from the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle, Creative Capital, Edgerton Foundation, NEFA National Theater Pilot, and Time Warner Foundation. They began collaborating at NYU where they received an MFA in musical theatre writing. Au Yong is based in San Francisco and Jafferis in New Haven.