Carolina Đỗ & VAS ELI
BETTERFLY Productions, Leviathan Lab, and JACK present
EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS!
in association with
The Hearth Supported Productions and The Sống Collective
Written by Carolina Ðỗ
Directed by Vas Eli
Co-produced by Maria Müller
Line produced by Federica Borlenghi
Assistant Directed and Stage Managed by Isabel Criado
Lighting Design by Jiahao “Neil” Qiu
Projection Design by Michi Zaya
Sound Design by Vas Eli
Moon Design by Joaquim Stevenson-Rodriguez
Board Operated by Fernando Gregório
CAST
Corneliu - Vas Eli
Kay - Julie Tran*
Xerxes - Maria Müller
Linh - Belle Le
David - Marlon Xavier
Voice - Matthew Zimmerman*
PLAYWRIGHT’S NOTE
“BULLSHIT. Ask for a refund, we’re going with a real lawyer. Money is not an issue. Fuck them. Fuck them to hell, pretentious ass lickers.”
On March 11, 2015, fueled with rageful indignation born of holding American citizenship (courtesy of refugee parents), I missived that to my then boyfriend, now husband, Vas, after he forwarded me a particularly inane response from a law firm reviewing his first O-1 visa application.
Against all odds, nearly eleven years later, my new play ExtraO1dinary Aliens! will have its first performance on March 7, 2026 at JACK in Brooklyn, directed (and led) by Vas and brought to life with a remarkable team of immigrant and first-generation theatermakers. It’s an absurd romantic comedy, drawn from the real-life funhouse nightmare Vas and I — and so many people we love — have endured with US Citizenship and Immigration Services — a.k.a. USCIS — while trying to build a life here under the looming fear of deportation. This play is my response to the American theater’s obsession with immigrant stories that are safely set in the past — or worse, produced without immigrants anywhere on the creative team.
ExtraO1dinary Aliens! is a love letter to the immigrants in my life — first and foremost to my husband — whose talents are every bit as audacious, expansive, and deserving as those of any of their American peers, and who should be afforded the same opportunities without having to prove their worth in triplicate.
Love, art, and community are what anchor and arm us against this monstrous system. How else can a Romanian and a Vietnamese-American meet, fall in love, and build a play with a team whose roots stretch to Spain, Peru, Ecuador, Italy, China, Mongolia, Brazil, and the Philippines?
America simply has to live up to the loftiest dreams of the souls who choose her.
— excerpted from the playwright’s article “Love, Art, and the O-1 Visa” in the March issue of The Hat
CAST & CREATIVE TEAM BIOS
Carolina Đỗ
Playwright
Carolina Đỗ is a theatre maker, community organizer, and proud descendant of Vietnamese freedom fighters and refugees. She's joyfully a downtown theater baby with a couple of Broadway and TV credits for health insurance and residuals. An alum of the Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab, JACKLabs, Fresh Ground Pepper Playground Playgroup, Ma-Yi Lab Playground, Episodic Theater Project Writers Cohort, and Orchard Project Greenhouse Lab and Homegrown Lab, Carolina’s work is an ever-evolving exploration of how theater can be a tool for rebellion and collective healing. Carolina’s writing has been supported by residencies and fellowships at MacDowell, JACK, The Hearth, Fault Line Theatre, Piper Theater, and Naked Angels. She is the inaugural recipient of The Movement Theatre Company's Jody Falco and Jeffrey Steinman commission. Carolina’s works have also been finalists for the Sokhary Chau Fellowship, Leah Ryan Fund, BricLab, and Bushwick Starr, and O'Neill. Her play Ăn Chơi: eat. play. rage. was shortlisted for the 2025 Yale Drama Series Prize, judged by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Co-Founding Producing Artistic Leader of The Sống Collective and Creative Director of Mai House Studio and BETTERFLY Productions. In her role as Associate Director for Community Engagement at PlayCo, she bridges the gap between performance and social impact. As a community organizer, her work is grounded in radical care and organizes where she's needed: e-sims for Gaza, anti-deportation work, community fridges, bailouts, jail support, undocumented communities, mutual aid, etc. Founding member of Asians4Abolition. BFA Brooklyn College. www.carolinado.com
Vas Eli
Director; Corneliu
Vas Eli is an award-winning actor based in NYC. A multidisciplinary artist, he is also a director, writer, producer, dialect coach, educator and painter. He is the founder of BETTERFLY Productions (The Pit, Zoom With Me, Far, Lemonking, The Sketchy Eastern European Show, When & Where). Theater: The Sketchy Eastern European Show (The Players Theater) Tamburlaine (TFANA), Jericho (Attic Theatre), Unearthly Visitants (Triskelion Arts), Island of Dr. Moreau (Piper Theatre), Splitfoot (Edinburgh Fringe), Lincoln Dress (Albany NY, Bucharest) TV: Night Agent, The Endgame, For Life, WeCrashed, The Deuce, The Blacklist. Film: Snakeeater, Varlet, Delenda, Hell House 2, Kidnapping of A Fish, The Naked Woman, Dominant Species, Far From Here. www.Vaseli.org, IG @vaseli_vaseli
Julie Tran*
Kay
Julie Tran is a Brooklyn native with a deep love of all things comedy. She's done countless sketch shows all over and hosts her own monthly stand up comedy showcase without being a stand up herself. Wild, right? And now she's found herself in EXTRAO1DINARY ALIENS! which hits home for herself and hopefully you, too.
Matthew Zimmerman*
Voice
Matthew is an actor and teaching artist in Brooklyn. NYC: Cimino’s Defeat, The Cherry Orchard (Adult Film), Face Value (DUAF), and Arms And The Man (Gingold Theatrical Group). Regional: King James, Miss Bennet: Christmas At Pemberley (Shadowland Stages), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, And Then They Came For Me (Alabama Shakespeare Festival). MFA, Brooklyn College.
Belle Le
Linh
Belle is a Vietnamese-American artist based in nyc. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with a BFA in acting. Past credits include Sex And The Abbey at the Brick and Winning Is Winning at JACK. She is eternally grateful for her family and friends, especially the Viet community in New York. Belle-le.com
Marlon Xavier
David
Marlon Xavier is a New York City-based actor, a proud member of Labyrinth Theatre Company and a Finalist at The Actors Studio. He holds an MFA degree from the Actor Studio Drama School. Marlon's credits include the films 'A Stage of Twilight' in which he starred alongside Karen Allen and William Sadler, Magic Hour with Miriam Shor, as well as roles in Blue Blood, Law and Order, The Equalizer, and The Savant. Marlon is deeply grateful to his beautiful wife for her unwavering support and constant inspiration as he continues his acting journey.
Maria Müller
Co-Producer; Xerxes
Maria Müller is a Romanian born, NY-based actor, writer, and producer for theater and film. She is also Executive and Co-Artistic Director of Et Alia, a theater company for international women. Recent acting credits include the plays Blood Orange by Abigail Duclos, directed by Vernice Miller and Until Dark, written and directed by Federica Borlenghi (for both of these plays she received a BroadwayWorld nomination), as well as the feature films No Tomorrow, written and directed by Martin Drop (Manhattan Film Festival, Queens World Film Festival) and Jet Lag in Summer, written and directed by Kunao Yan (Pingyao International Film Festival). She is the recipient of several grants including Brooklyn Arts Council and the winner of numerous awards (Best Actress, Best Drama Short, etc.) for various film projects. She has also worked as host and panel speaker for events such as East European Comic Con, National Women's Theatre Festival, etc. Her work is featured in national and international publications (Splash Magazines, The National Herald, Radio Romania Cultural), as well as in a book for which she was interviewed alongside Nadine Labaki. She holds a BFA from NYU Tisch.
Federica Borlenghi
Line Producer
Federica Borlenghi (Line Producer) is a multi-hyphenate artist from Milan, Italy, based in Brooklyn. Selected Line Producing credits include The Leg. by notAmuse (Mitu580), Ellen Winter's YIKES Album Release Concert (Joe's Pub), Christie (The Waterfront Museum). Associate Producer credits include What Will the Neighbors Say? 's At The Barricades (Mitu580), and the pre-production of The King’s Wife Musical (pre-production for the reading premiere at the Adirondack Festival). As Producer, Federica specializes in Site-Specific performances with immersive elements. Mostly known as a Director, she has collaborated with numerous theater companies, including The Bushwick Starr, LaMama, The Mercury Store, What Will The Neighbors Say?, Et Alia Theater, IATI Theater, Marymount College, and many more. More on federicaborlenghi.com
Isabel Criado
Assistant Director & Stage Manager
Isabel Criado is a Spanish/Peruvian multidisciplinary theatre artist based in New York City wanting to voice the experiences of multicultural immigrants. A graduate of The New School’s School of Drama (BFA, with Honors), Isabel has worked on a diverse range of productions as Stage Manager including Blood Orange by Abigail Duclow (A.R.T. Gural Theatre), Alexandria by Markley Bortz (Dixon Place), The edge of nature by Josh Fox (La MaMa Experimental Theatre), and CLOWN BAR 2 by Adam Szymkowicz (Parkside Lounge). More @isabelcriadob
Jiahao “Neil” Qiu
Lighting Designer
Jiahao (Neil) Qiu 邱嘉皓 (he/him) is a Chinese-born Theatre Collaborator and Lighting Designer. His recent design credits in the United States: The Wilderness (Time Theatre Collective), Redemption Story (The Associates Theater Ensemble), Seven Cousins For A Horse (Thrown Stone Theatre), and Who’s Afraid of Viringa Woolf? (Yale Repertory Theatre, Connecticut Critics Circle Award). For more information, please visit neilqiu.com | @neilqiu_design
Michi Zaya
Projection Designer
Michi Zaya (any pronoun) is a Mongolian storyteller of all trades, based in Brooklyn. Michi’s work can be seen on stage as a performer, projections designer, and director. Michi has worked with Asian American & immigrant stories on stage in New York and Boston. Thematic elements in their body of work have been language, grief, Queerness, and community. Their black cat is her son and the center of their universe. Projections Credits: X#*! You Very Much, Mom (Leviathan Lab, Second Generation Prod.); The Ceremony (Chuang Stage); Silent Sky (Central Square Theatre); Did You Eat? /밥 먹었니? (World Premiere, Chuang Stage, Seoulful Productions); wAve (The Public Theater, Brooklyn College); The Bakkhai, Ride The Cyclone Kiss (Queens College); Curious Incident Of A Dog In The Night-Time (NYU Tisch New Studio on Broadway) and more. Website: michizaya.com
Fernando Gregório
Board Operator
Fernando Gregório (aka DJ FeG) is a Brazilian interdisciplinary artist and DJ based in Brooklyn. Working across sound, performance, video, sculpture, and mixed reality, his practice explores the ecological and political implications of digital media through more-than-human storytelling. He has presented work internationally, with support from institutions such as the Sundance Interdisciplinary Program and the New York Foundation for the Arts, while also performing in New York’s underground queer scene, blending techno, house, and Latin influences.
*Appearing through an Agreement between this theatre, Betterfly Productions, and Actors' Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
SPECIAL THANKS
Support for BETTERFLY Productions, Leviathan Lab, and JACK’s production of ExtraO1dinary Aliens! is made possible, in part, through the generous support of Venturous Theatre Fund.
As well as the individual contributions of 100+ donors:
Tracy Huynh Kathy Huynh-Phan Tony Aidan Vo Brenda Stokes Justin Woo The Bechdel Project Annie Chen LEVIATHAN LAB Nancy Pop Justina Kaleta Jennie Livingston Rachel McPhee Anonymous Thammie Quach Anonymous Edward Chin-Lyn Gillian Durkee Amanda Centeno Anonymous Christina Fallon Calley Anderson Brigid L Paula and Andrés Cindy Cheung Gaven Trinidad Ciara and John D. Nu Meghan Finn Michelle Vo James Kennedy Susan & Xuyen Hinh Cardinal Do Jody Falco and Jeffrey Steinman Tom and Marleigh Gilsenan-Kelly Keith R Smith Lynn Kim Do Stefanie Lau John Del Gaudio karin a kawamoto Eric Ting Francesca Pazniokas Caroline Cao Bill Rauch Anonymous Đavid Lee Huỳnh Ed Malone Dan and Karla Silver My Le Ashley Thaxton-Stevenson Tiberiu Gavris Monique Pappas Tommie John Hammerer Nazli Sarpkaya Lianna Rada-Hung Damian Lamour Ramona Rose King Francesca McKenzie Yên Sen Andreea Christopher Lew Meadow Nguy Cherry Lou Sy Louis So Annie Montgomery Diana Risse Anonymous Joanne Pan Alan Arbesfeld Anonymous Belinda Mello Eileen F. Anonymous Jes Vu Anonymous Wynton Wong Anonymous Kat Phan Jessica Luu Pelletier Caroline Hong Anonymous Bob Jaffe Kate Loewald Charlotte Fleck Jonathan Castanien Anonymous Lauren Holmes Kristen McLaughlin Nana Dakin An-Li Bogan Sabrina Peck Alyssa Haddad-Chin John P. McEneny Anonymous Adi and Ioana Bulboaca
Special thanks to: NYCIceWatch, Larissa from Out of the Mattress, and Lucia Perez for the sticker and t-shirt designs.
ExtraO1dinary Aliens! was developed with the support of JACK, Fresh Ground Pepper, The Makers Ensemble, Second Generations, and MacDowell.
BETTERFLY Productions is an artist-led theater company centering immigrant, third-culture, and first-generation theatermakers as creative leaders, collaborators, and cultural workers. Viet- and Romanian-led, BETTERFLY develops and produces form-pushing new works while providing paid opportunities and career support to artists navigating the U.S. immigration system. Our work cultivates spaces where immigrant stories and audiences can gather with care, curiosity, and collective purpose, and where artists are supported not only creatively but also materially. https://www.betterflyproductions.com/
Founded in 2009 by actor/producer Ariel Estrada (TCG Rising Leader of Color, artEquity BIPOC Leadership Circle), Leviathan Lab is an award-winning, NYC-based nonprofit creative studio whose mission is the advancement of Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) film and theatre artists and their work. Leviathan Lab envisions a theatre industry where AANHPI theatre artists and the artistry and presence of all people of color is as prevalent as their white colleagues. Leviathan functions as a lab where early-career and established AANHPI theatre artists can be courageous, experiment, and thrive as they create works that captivate the audiences we serve. Leviathan works to open spaces that promote social justice, bridge communities, and assert the power of art to change the world. www.leviathanlab.org
Since 2019, The Sống Collective’s mission is to reclaim the Vietnamese American narrative by creating development and performance opportunities for emerging artists of color. We nurture a community of artists whose work explores questions of identity, race, intersectionality, immigration, and the refugee experience. We are dedicated to telling stories that dare to subvert preconceptions of Asian Americans. Our programming encompasses community building and new work development. We focus on providing space and funding to Vietnamese artists as we work to inject our stories as told by us into the American theatre canon. We’ve collaborated with over 150 artists, supported 15 new plays, and hosted 3 writers labs. Our process typically starts with a simple question, “What are you dreaming of?” https://thesongcollectivenyc.org/
The Hearth exists to address a dual need in the theater community: To narrow the industry-wide gender gap by welcoming more women, trans, and non-binary artists and artists of underrepresented genders into the field and to launch the careers of emerging artists by offering them otherwise rare opportunities for institutional support, development, and production. We help launch the careers of emerging artists by offering them rare opportunities for support, development, and production. Through our critically acclaimed productions—including RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR, happy life, Push Party, brainsmash, Events and NYTimes Critic’s Pick Athena—we've kickstarted the professional trajectories of talented artists like Kallan Dana, Kathy Ng, Nia Akilah Robinson, Sophie Weisskoff, Bailey Williams and Gracie Gardner (to name a few). The Hearth commissions, develops, and produces plays that explore characters who pulse with emotional, intellectual, and psychological complexity and, by so doing, we challenge gender stereotypes, advance and complicate the conversation about feminism, and expand perceptions of what it means to be live in a body that has been historically oppressed or marginalized due to gender expression. www.thehearththeater.com
Venturous Theater Fund supports ambitious new work for the stage and the writers who create it. We make grants to fund the production of audacious, irreverent new plays that are “venturous”—ambitious in scale, epic in scope, challenging in form, controversial in subject matter, experimental in concept, and/or unabashed in their theatricality. We also fund artist-driven initiatives that embrace agency for playwrights at all stages of their careers, and that champion creative growth and financial security for dramatists. Venturous Theater Fund is a program of Broad Reach Foundation.
Bechdel Project is a feminist arts incubator for dramatic writers. With over 50 years of combined experience in management, advocacy, and new work development, we move nimbly to deliver a unique blend of art, activism, and education. https://www.bechdelproject.org/
Actors' Equity Association (AEA), founded in 1913, represents more than 50,000 actors and stage managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions, providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans. AEA is a member of the AFL-CIO, and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions. The Equity emblem is our mark of excellence. www.actorsequity.org
