MU CO-COMMISSIONS SEQUEL TO THE BROTHERS PARANORMAL

The Brothers Paranormal (2019), a co-production between Penumbra and Theater Mu, directed by Lou Bellamy. Photos by Allen Weeks.

East West Players, Perseverance Theatre, and Theater Mu are joining forces from across the country—from LA, Alaska, and Saint Paul—to commission Thai American playwright Prince Gomolvilas to write a sequel to his 2019 hit, The Brothers Paranormal. Currently titled Paranormal Inside, the play is set to have its first draft completed in September 2023. 

“Theater Mu co-produced The Brothers Paranormal with Penumbra Theatre just days after it premiered at Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in May 2019, and it was an immediate hit,” recalls Mu artistic director Lily Tung Crystal. “In it, Prince introduces us to characters grappling with the loss of family and home—a Black couple fleeing Hurricane Katrina and a Thai immigrant family searching for belonging. These issues of race, displacement, economic inequality, and climate change are even more heightened in the world today, and we can’t wait to see how Prince tackles these questions in the next installment of his gripping ghost story.”

Perseverance and East West Players each produced The Brothers Paranormal in 2022, and across all three regional premieres, audiences have been captivated by what the New Yorker describes as a “clever, multilayered play [that] is gratifyingly subtle in its inquiry into migration—the pain of crossing over for the living and the dead alike.” (And if you’re wondering, our local newspapers loved it, too, with the Star Tribune calling it a “new must-see thriller” and the Pioneer Press reviewer writing that it was “a magnificent piece of work that left me hoping that Gomolvilas’ gifts will haunt our local stages again soon.”)

Beyond licensing his plays, Gomolvilas has also collaborated with all three companies on writing workshops and play discussions. For instance, at Mu, he has been a part of Dr. Josephine Lee’s fall 2022 course, Asian Americans Recast the Classics. And at Perseverance Theatre, he made a regional premiere even more special.

Perseverance artistic director Leslie Ishii says. “When we produced The Brothers Paranormal here at Perseverance Theatre, Prince attended our opening and stayed a few days to offer a playwriting workshop. It was then that I knew that I wanted to approach Prince to write a sequel or a part two of some kind. I also had the vision of this new work lifting up theaters from the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists with National New Play Network programming.” She adds, “For me, Prince is one the best writers of cross-racial new work in the US theater sector.”

East West Players states, “We are ecstatic to collaborate with Perseverance Theatre and Theater Mu in the commissioning of this play. Prince’s works, especially The Brothers Paranormal, land expertly at the intersection of identities, making it an incredible fit for all three theater companies and their respective missions of uplifting voices from the global majority. Additionally, his writing and storytelling remains searing and profound. Whether audiences of Paranormal Inside are familiar with The Brothers Paranormal or are new to Prince’s work, East West Players is thrilled to continue championing his artistry alongside Perseverance Theatre and Theater Mu.”

Prince Gomolvilas

Gomolvilas, whose work also includes The Theory of Everything (winner of the 2001 PEN Center USA West Literary Award for drama), has free reign over Paranormal Inside, which he calls a “spiritual sequel” to The Brothers Paranormal. 

“While key characters from the first play return and we get to see their stories evolve, the new piece also functions as a standalone play that audiences unfamiliar with The Brothers Paranormal can also appreciate,” Gomolvilas says. “Since I am writing this new play 10 years after I drafted the first one, a lot has changed with me personally as a playwright and a person—and with the entire world. It’s interesting to look at the structure, style, and themes of the first play through a present-day lens. Ultimately, I want the new play to be even more dramatic, more funny, more scary, more everything, than the first—otherwise, what’s the point?”