Steve “Spike” Wong confronts racism through playwriting

What has Steve “Spike” Wong been doing since March 2020? Everything he can to survive a deadly pandemic, just like the rest of the world. But unlike many of us, he faces microaggressions and violent acts of racism while on his weekly coffee and donut run.

The theater artist’s great power is the ability to dramatize experience in a way that engenders in the audience recognition and empathy. Steve “Spike” Wong is a playwright and performer whose work provides a window into worlds that are uniquely his–drawing on his life as a high-school teacher, an athlete and serious mountain climber, and an Asian American living in California–in ways that speak to all of us.

Read the new Lookout Santa Cruz article by Wallace Baine detailing Spike’s recent journeys: When he endured racism at a Santa Cruz donut shop last year, Spike Wong did what he does: He wrote about it

View a recording of Spike reading his play “Glazed” for the Monday Night MarshStream, originally Zoomed on October 5, 2020. Shortcut: scroll to 41:50 in the timeline. Spike’s reading ends at 55:43 in the timeline.

Stay tuned for 2022, when Spike will mount his original play about his father’s experience during World War II: “White Sky, Falling Dragon”