Bringing the Kim Loo Sisters Back to the Stage

The Kim Loo Sisters, illustrated by Tony Jillson / Birdwaves Media

For almost three decades, Alice, Maggie, Jenée, and Bubbles Louie—dubbed the Kim Loo Sisters—were entertainment stars who got their start in vaudeville circuit. Called "the Chinese Andrews Sisters," the singing quartet went from booking kiddie revues around their Minneapolis hometown, to appearing on Broadway with performers such as Frank Sinatra, to traveling overseas to perform for soldiers during World War II.

Now, their story will be returning to the stage, due to a co-commission by Theater Mu and the History Theatre. The project officially began in 2017 thanks in part to a Jerome Foundation grant Mu obtained, but Jan 18 will be the first public presentation of the musical with book and lyrics by Jessica Huang and music by Jacinth Greywoode. The reading is part of History Theatre's new works festival, Raw Stages.

"While The Kim Loo Sisters tells a story that's nearly 100 years old, it's still very relevant today," says Lily Tung Crystal, who is Mu's artistic director and the director of The Kim Loo Sisters reading. "That’s both sad and exciting—it's unfortunate we haven't made that much progress in the last 100 years, and it's inspiring to be able to direct and produce a musical that tackles these issues and questions of representation." 

A long-deserved spotlight

Playwright Jessica Huang

The idea for a musical on this subject matter first came from Pearl Lam Bergad, the executive director of the Chinese Heritage Foundation, who had been working with Huang and the History Theatre on a community event during Huang's world premiere of The Paper Dreams of Harry Chin in 2017. Bergad showed History Theatre's former artistic director Ron Peluso The Kim Loo Sisters documentary that Leslie Li had made about her mom, Jenée, and her aunties. Peluso then reached out to Mu thinking this would be a good collaboration. (For his part, Peluso says that, after working with Huang on Paper Dream, "It was agreed that Jessica would be a great choice to write the Kim Loo Sisters story.")

The foundation of the musical's research rested on Li's documentary, the family biography she wrote called Just Us Girls, as well as questions Li directly answered for Huang. Beyond learning about the quartet, though, Huang had to do broader research on what that time in history was like. Who were George White's Scandals, or Ann Miller? What would it have been like to do a USO tour? How would being an Asian American in show business some 80, 90 years ago be similar or different to the experiences she sees now? 

Then, of course, what does she actually want to do with all of this information?

"After the research, there's the time where I think, 'What story do I want to tell?'" Huang says. "What I have to say about it is—and hopefully in the musical, I can say it better than I can say it right now—but … why don't I know about these women? What a gift it would have been being a young person of mixed Chinese Ukrainian descent to have these women as role models."

Tung Crystal adds, "Kim Loo Sisters is unique in that it not only tells the narrative of the mixed-race diaspora of our community, but it really tackles this question of AAPI representation in entertainment. It’s the story of these four sisters who were extremely talented and made a name in the cabaret circuit in the 1930s, but because of their race, they were overshadowed by other girl groups like the Andrews Sisters."

From left to right, the actors portraying the Kim Loo Sisters during Raw Stages are Rachael Armstrong, Suzie Juul, Meghan Kreidler, and Michi Lee

One step closer

In the week preceding the Raw Stages reading, Huang and Greywoode will both be in the room with Tung Crystal, music director Jason Hansen, and the nine-person cast. While Huang, Greywoode, and Tung Crystal had worked on the first act during a co-theater workshop in August 2021, Huang half-jokes that there isn't a moment that hasn't been rewritten, with one song undergoing no less than three transformations. Audiences will hear the expected 1930s and '40s sounds, but Huang had Greywoode bring in other influences from the sisters' Polish and Chinese heritages as well as aspects from more modern music. 

"Because of so many factors of the era and of our field, the Kim Loo Sisters did not hold the rights to their music," Huang says. "It felt like the most exciting artistic choice—and one that I hope contributes to the future life of this show and their story—to create a score of original music."

Huang expects she and Greywoode will make changes to the script and songs throughout the week of workshopping, and then to continue making revisions after the reading. As Tung Crystal summarizes, nothing is locked until opening night.

The last time Theater Mu and History Theatre collaborated on a mainstage production was back in 2015, and both artistic directors are hoping The Kim Loo Sisters will make its world premiere in the next couple of years. "It's a story that I knew before I came here to work at History Theatre, so I personally really, really hope it can come to stage," says Richard D. Thompson, History Theatre's artistic director. "It's an absolute American story, especially when one looks at the sisters’ parents, who they were, how they fell in love, and then at their children who looked to participate in this American experience the best way that they could."

To guarantee your seat at The Kim Loo Sisters' workshop presentation on Jan 18 at 7:30 p.m., get your ticket now at the Raw Stages page on History Theatre's website. (Update Jan 17: Tickets are currently sold out, but the History Theatre box office will open a waitlist one hour prior to performance in the case of any unclaimed seats.)