Second Stage Uptown Season Kicks Off With Will Frears-Helmed Drama Year Zero

Second Stage Theatre Uptown will kick off its 2010 season with the New York premiere of Michael Golamco’s Year Zero. Directed by Will Frears, the production begins previews on May 18 with opening night set for May 26 at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre.

Year Zeo will feature Louis Ozawa Changchien (TV’s Law & Order, Lights Out), Peter Kim (Broadway’s Thoroughly Modern Millie), Mason Lee (Play Group Theatre’s Zanna Don’t) and Maureen Sebastian (TV’s Gossip Girl, Fragments).

The show follows Vuthy Vichea (Lee), a 16-year-old Cambodian American who wears thick glasses, loves hip hop and plays Dungeons and Dragons. After his mother’s death, Vuthy and his sister Ra (Sebastian) struggle to reinvent themselves in Long Beach, California where being different can be deadly. Year Zero is described as a comedic drama about a young generation paving a new future by remembering its past.

Created as a program to help develop and provide exposure for the voices of a new generation of theatre artists, the Second Stage Theatre Uptown Series seeks to develop the skills of emerging playwrights, to provide early-career artists with the support of a major artistic institution, and to create new plays for the American theater.