Every satire is rooted in a grain of truth. Joked playwright Alex Lin, "I've spent my whole life around women just like the ones you see in Chinese Republicans, so in many ways, I’ve had this play fermenting in my brain since I was a snot-nosed kid. This is so much cheaper than therapy!" But she went on to say it's more than "a surface-level comedy mocking people with a very different political POV."

"My greatest hope is audiences walk out not only laughing their asses off, but also with a deeper reflection on how these women aren’t so entirely different from themselves, and see how even the most compassionate of us can be pushed to the most horrible extremes," the playwright continued.

"Saying that it’s a satire about women who are Chinese and also happen to be Republicans is partly true, but the play also aims to tackle much more," echoed actress Anna Zavelson, who plays Katie. "Our show is really taking a deeper look at generations of Asian American women who have given up everything to succeed in an industry dominated by white men, and how that reality forms their beliefs.

"I love that none of the women are flawless, and while it allows the audience to criticize their character[s], it also forces the audience to recognize the humanity in all of them."

"The designers and I were intent in recreating the many locations that are familiar to New Yorkers — a Chinese restaurant, the office, and the corporate board room — in vivid detail," said director Chay Yew. But in the context of the show, each of these ordinary places is, he added, "a metaphoric prison which the characters have willingly allowed themselves to be trapped." The three older characters have been at the same routine for decades, and they're all but stuck in it.

According to Yew, though, there is one "fantasy scene" that breaks out of the otherwise realistic feel of the play to reflect the main character's "fears, dreams and desires in one sucker punch of a scene." We can't wait to see what that will look like on stage.

"The clothes make the man," "Dress for the job you want," "If you look good, you feel good" — all these adages suggest how clothing shapes how others see you and how you see yourself. That theme recurs in Chinese Republicans; the banking world, of course, requires a certain standard of dress.

Actress Jodi Long said there are multiple mentions of the characters' office shoe choices. Her character, Phyllis, is a savvy, experienced businesswoman and the first Asian woman to be a managing director at an NYC investment bank. Long wants audiences to speculate, with that context, what shoe might she wear?

On the other end of the career ladder is 24-year-old Katie Liu (Anna Zavelson), who's initially eager to emulate the older women but also comes into her own throughout the show. "With that, there’s some really great shifts in wardrobe as the play progresses," Zavelson said. "It’s interesting to track her sense of individualism through the clothes she picks." Credit costume designer Anita Yavich for that.

"A lot of our set dressing and props (in rehearsal at least) are pulled from the most recent Broadway production of another profanity-laden brutal aria on the American workplace," Lin revealed. She's winking at Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play about cutthroat real estate agents. It was revived in spring 2025 for a limited run.

We don't know whether Glengarry's set pieces will ultimately make it to the Chinese Republicans stage, but its spirit nonetheless remains. According to Long, "If you like treachery and comedy in the vein of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, with Asian American women duking it out, you'll like Chinese Republicans."

Lin, Yew, and Zavelson each gave a few of those recommendations. These movies, TV shows, and musicians are wildly different individually, but together, they put Chinese Republicans at the intersection of corporate comedy-drama, contemporary pop culture, and women-centric stories of the city. Your seat at the power lunch awaits.

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