“An innovative piece of storytelling that takes a witty and insightful look at the Asian American experience.”

-Michael Kang, director of The Motel

“Timothy Huang's AND THE EARTH MOVED is a landmark achievement in musical theater and in Asian American arts. It is an innovative and deeply-moving journey through the neuroses, fantasies, and hallucinations of a young artist's mind. Each stop on the protagonist's odyssey is filled with unforgettable characters and situations and awe-inspiring musical numbers. Combined they make one laugh and cry and feel for the character in a way that most musicals fail to do.

Put simply, AND THE EARTH MOVED is storytelling of the highest class, filled with innovation and sheer verve. Each song and narrative pit stop bursts with Huang's obvious talent and heart. This is a musical that must not be missed.”

- Yongsoo Park, author of Boy Genius

talkiknbroadway.com - Theatre Review by Warren Hoffman

Hopefully we'll be hearing a lot from "triple threat" talent composer, lyricist, and book writer Timothy Huang in the next few years. Though his new musical And the Earth Moved, a funny yet touching show about cultural identity and the search for meaning in life, is a work that still needs some polishing and trimming, Huang brings a distinctive new voice to musical theater that makes you sit up and pay attention.

Though some critics will undoubtedly describe in profuse detail that And the Earth Moved is an "Asian American musical" as most of the show's cast, creators, and plot elements are Asian American, it's more important to recognize the significant contribution that this show makes to the ever-widening and inclusive definition of what constitutes the American musical. Indeed, Huang's show with its quirky sense of humor and odd-ball yet moving characters often reminded me of William Finn's work, particularly A New Brain, more than say Rodgers and Hammerstein's now dated musical Flower Drum Song.

Huang's show centers on Will Chen (Thomas C. Kouo), a young Taiwanese American jingle writer living in New York, who is frustrated by his nagging Taiwanese parents (played to hilarious perfection by Erin Quill and Orville Mendoza). Not particularly happy that Will has a white girlfriend, Jane (the golden-throated Lisa Howard), his parents continually pester him via telephone about his love life, his lack of a good career, and the fact that he has yet to make arrangements for their upcoming Thanksgiving visit. Shortly after one such phone call, Will learns that a deadly earthquake has struck Taiwan, and suddenly his life is thrown into disarray as he wonders if his parents are still alive.

So begins the show's main adventure as Will wanders the streets of New York (smartly evoked with slide projections by Jennifer Varbalow) searching for meaning and stability amid his life's chaotic uncertainty. Will soon finds himself lost, not just physically, but emotionally as well, trying to figure out how to reconcile his Asian roots with his American identity. Meeting up with a mysterious young woman named Jenny (Constance Wu), the two find themselves involved in a series of wacky encounters: they get held up at gun point in a Korean grocery store by a man in a Barney costume, mobbed by a Chinese gospel choir in Harlem, and in the show's funniest scene, trapped in Wan Fat Chow's, a Chinese restaurant known bizarrely for its "Clown Waiters" and "Sesame Chicken."

Insofar as this show is partially about making peace with one's cultural roots and identity, Huang uses his terrific sense of humor to send up a bevy of Asian stereotypes from the Korean grocery store clerk, cleverly named Dill Gent Lee (a crowd-pleasing Steven Eng), to hard-to-understand, impolite Chinese waiters. Similarly, while at Wan Fat Chow's, Will and Jenny get caught up in a satiric wedding ceremony (staged as nightclub floor-show entertainment) in which a crazy M. Butterfly-like drag queen (Brian Cooper), complete with a cracking fan straight out of the recent revival of Flower Drum Song, leads the cast in an immensely entertaining number that pokes fun at Asian gender and sexual stereotypes from musical theater. Though the sequence doesn't really advance the story much, it's such an over-the-top inventive production number as staged by director/choreographer Nina Zoie Lam, who parodies shows including Chicago and Miss Saigon, that you don't really care how irrelevant it is.

Huang knows how to land the jokes, poking fun at Caucasians and Asians alike, but he also knows how to write with lyrical beauty. His songs reveal poignant sentiments such as Will's sense of childhood nostalgia and longing that he expresses in "My Monkey and Me," the beautiful story song that opens act two. The pieces of And the Earth Moved, though, are significantly greater than the whole. Clearly talent abounds in the show's cast and creative team, but the overall structure of the show is uneven, often dragging too much, particularly in the soul-searching ballad-heavy second act. Indeed, the central conceit of a character looking for meaning in his life is too non-specific and flimsy of a plot to sufficiently hold the show together. This two-hour musical with an intermission could easily be trimmed to a tight and lean hour and a half one act.

With one exception, Huang's show is well served by a talented cast (and how refreshing to see Asian American actors being given funny and juicy roles for once!) The musical is custom-built for character actors, and the large cast is packed with individuals who have a knack for comedy. Kristi Tomooka is riotous as a TV reporter who continually interrupts her news reports to comment on the foibles of Will's life. As Sister Deborah, the lead gospel singer of The First Pentecostal Church of Harlem, Melanie May Po shakes the roof with her impressive and soulful vocals. Constance Wu offers a sweet and engaging performance as Jenny, Will's vagabond sidekick. If there is one link weak in the equation, sadly it is Thomas Kouo as leading man Will. Though his voice and acting are decent enough, Kouo lacks the intensity and gravitas that this major role requires. Though able to carry off the ranginess of Huang's music, Kouo's voice was often not loud enough to be heard over the show's single piano.

And the Earth Moved might not be the most perfectly written show, but it offers so many delights for its audience that it is definitely worth seeing. Hopefully Huang's show will encourage other minority musical theater creators to write, bringing new perspectives and stories to the very white world of musical theater.

nytheatre.com review - Matthew Trumbull · September 16, 2004

Will Chen (Thomas C. Kouo) is a twenty-something Asian-American musical writer in New York, besieged by the cacophonic commercial jingles he writes to make money; phone calls from his parents in Taiwan, full of confidence-boosting reminders like “When are you getting a ‘real’ job?”, “Are you doing drugs?”, and “Have you dumped your non-Christian, white girlfriend?”; and a sublet search for these parents for their Thanksgiving visit, when they will meet Jane (Lisa Howard), said un-dumped, non-Christian, white girlfriend. His is a life lacking strong foundation in identity, direction, or serenity, so it is poetic that an earthquake in his parents’ country reduces the next 24 hours of his life into chaos. And the Earth Moved is Chen’s asymmetric musical journey through that day, created by Timothy Huang from events on an actual day when he was unsure if his parents still lived. Huang turns N New York into a mercurial hell for his main character. While on a errand, Chen’s own neighborhood magically morphs into an unfamiliar corner of the city, and he becomes lost. Unable to contact his girlfriend or parents, Chen zigzags from stranger to stranger, mostly Asian and all possessing a strange power to humiliate him about his parents, his lack of ethnic pride, and his faithlessness.

Kouo has a mellifluous tenor sound, supported by the bright vocal power of his supporting cast. Many of the ensemble dart in and out of the action as various residents of this strange Wonderland or Oz that replaces the Upper West Side for a day. The show-stopper, “The Concert of Prayer,” is delivered by Melanie May Po, who belts some serious gospel as Sister Deborah of the First Chinese Pentecostal Church of Harlem. Huang’s composing skills and gift for melody lend this show its most formidable asset, the score. Certain pieces nimbly trim the fat off Asian stereotypes of all-too-common experience, leaving us with a stark revision of the American Dream. Indeed, “Livin’ the American Dream” is bodega-owner Dilly Gent Lee’s chipper summation of his existence. But it masks a fact sung in his line “I never leave the store”—working like a mule does not mean he will sell enough Tic-Tacs and cigarettes to ever hire help, take a vacation, or buy a house. Two ensemble choruses, “Wan Fat Chow’s” and “Ha Ha We So Happy” are sung by the clown-nosed, peasant-hat-wearing staff of a Chinese restaurant, sending up the shouted broken English of the Asian minstrel character.

Director/choreographer Zoie Lam succeeds at keeping the show’s pace brisk and unpredictable. The minimalist set, standard for festival works, is niftily augmented by photographs projected onto an enormous screen at the back of the stage, suggesting street corners and building interiors. Though few flaws are noticeable as the show proceeds, certain scenes seem incongruous even in a plot meant to keep us off-balance. Howard, as Jane, the dutiful girlfriend left at home while Chen wanders, is forced to navigate through a story about searching for candles that intermittently swarms in and uproots us from the main plot. It would be far more interesting for us to slip further into Chen’s lonely shoes, and have little idea what is going on at the home he cannot find. In the Pentecostal church scene near the end, Chen comes to an epiphany that is a bit pat—it is regretful that Huang’s final themes take such a hygienic turn. I didn’t want the refreshing complexity of this identity hunt to end.

Backstage - Reviewed By Mark Dundas Wood

"Why can't a son be a man in his parents' eyes?" wonders Will Chen (Thomas C. Kouo), a Taiwanese-American jingle writer living in Manhattan. Will's parents call him incessantly from overseas to complain about his professional life and his "crazy pagan" girlfriend (Lisa Howard). But when a major earthquake shakes Taiwan and Will's parents' safety is in question, his life goes topsy-turvy. He begins a trek through unknown parts of New York on a psychic journey in search of his identity. A mysterious waif named Jenny (Constance Wu) plays unlikely Sancho Panza to Will's Quixote.

"And the Earth Moved" -- with book, music, and lyrics by Timothy Huang -- gathers steam as Will's quest turns increasingly surrealistic. The best scene, imaginatively staged by director-choreographer Nina Zoie Lam, takes place in Wan Fat Chow's restaurant, where the proprietor is a fan-snapping cross-dresser (the hilarious Brian Cooper) and the waiters are clowns. Then, in Act II, Will winds up in the First Chinese Pentecostal Church of Harlem, where Sister Deborah (the spirited Melanie May Po) leads a couple of rousing gospel numbers. The more subdued sequences, unfortunately, don't showcase Huang's talents as well as these two set pieces -- but he's clearly gifted, especially as a lyricist.