Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord is a 2021 American play by Kristina Wong. It centers Wong's experience organizing hundreds of volunteers to sew masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic, calling themselves the "Auntie Sewing Squad". Over the course of the play, Wong uses comedy to address themes such as the often unattainable nature of the American Dream, anti-Asian racism in the U.S. caused by the pandemic, and the invisible labor of women and people and color. The play was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and won the Lucille Lortel Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Solo Show.[1]
The play was developed through live Zoom performances during the pandemic.
Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord premiered off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on November 4, 2021.[2] The production was directed by Chay Yew, and was streamed virtually for purchase.[3]
The show made its West Coast premiere at La Jolla Playhouse's Potiker Theatre on September 20, 2022.[4] Wong later brought the play to Portland Center Stage beginning in November 2022 and performed at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre beginning in February 2023.
The show has received positive reviews. Laura Collins-Hughes of The New York Times declared the show a Critics Pick, describing the show as a "spiky comic tonic".[5] In a review of Center Theatre Group's production of the show in Los Angeles, critic Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times praised Wong's performance as being full of "vibrant, wacky, lovably chaotic immediacy".[6]