Lucky Me! A few weeks back, I went to Manhattan’s Pan Asian Repertory Theatre to see Myka Cue’s brilliant performance in Chasing the Butterflies, a heart-wrenching one-woman show she wrote herself about the death of her father. Since my FF2 Team Mate Katusha Jin was one of the directors of Chasing the Butterflies, she was able to connect us, and I soon had the honor of sitting down with Myka for an extremely fruitful conversation about her philosophy around theatre, acting, and (of course) her journey writing the show—which, as it turns out, has been long.
Chasing the Butterflies was originally conceived as a thesis project during Myka’s time as a grad student in Brown Trinity’s MFA Acting program. The show has since blossomed into a beautiful new version of itself, like a butterfly, for a new audience. Our conversation was long, so here are some moments I found particularly special.
Evy: How much of the story is fictionalized? I know that it’s based on your own experiences, of course, but in the process of going into your own father’s life… for example, were the memory sequences all things that actually happened?
Myka: I’d say it’s 90% close. Even one part, I revisited it, and I was like: ‘Wow, this is per word! This is almost, like, a copy-paste of my sister’s story… ish. In terms of some of the lines. Some are sort-of… dramatized. I knew in this iteration what I wanted to be focusing on were his relationships, right? To evoke more of who he was. And—for example—I wanted to find a way to show how generous he was as a person. And while it wasn’t necessarily shoes for my older sister—in real life it was probably a car, let’s say… those sorts of parts came into play. What would be effective as something you can see on stage, but still grounded to some truth. I would say a good 90% is actually a part of his life. And of course, character-wise, I tried to really honor a combination of how I remember him—which is hard, because I was 8 years old—and how my family members remember him.
Evy: Did you get feedback from your other family members?
Myka: No, they haven’t seen it.
Evy: Oh, they haven’t seen it?
Myka: No, they’ve asked me for a video… but I was like, ‘It’s different,’ you know? It’s different when you experience it in real time. So I said, [Laughs] ‘Oh, you better get a ticket and come here!’ They’re all in the Philippines, in Manila, basically…
So, this is like a question that I have now—and I’d be interested to hear what you think about this, too—I always have this question of why a certain story has to be experienced in a certain way. Like, why does the story have to exist as a film versus any other medium. Why does this piece—my piece—have to exist as a theatre piece and not a film piece, not a TV piece, not a poetry, or something? And this is why I want my family to experience it for the medium it was made for.
Evy: On that topic of intention. Back when this production was an ‘assignment,’ was it a requirement for it to be a one-person show?
Myka: Yes. I think what made the program unique—and unfortunately it’s closing: the current students are the last graduating class in Brown Trinity’s MFA Acting program, in 2026—they wanted to cultivate us as makers; as artists who could, sort of, just make their own work… I think you could maybe choose to do something different, but that was sort of their main thing.
And I had no intention, or idea that I was going to play my father. That came about… maybe sometime in the middle of the semester. It was the Fall, and our playwriting teacher asked us to come up with 3 pages of just, like, random thoughts. It’s an effective process, actually. You’re free-writing these random pages and then she’s like, ‘I see a thread here,’ and, ‘what is this about childhood,’ and, ‘what is this about butterflies…’
And, ‘Oh, you wrote about your father.’ And she was like, ‘What is that?’
How does magic exist onstage?
But then I remembered, one of my initial questions that sort of started what I was really interested in exploring was like, ‘How does magic exist onstage?’ And that was the root question that I wanted to work on. And then the content sort of followed from that. And so it became about, ‘How do I re-incarnate my father onstage?’ And I was like, ‘I guess I have to play him now.’ [Laughs] And there’s something about how as an artist, as a sort of personal thing, I don’t like narrating as myself. When I go onstage I want to be a character. So, yeah, I was like, ‘I guess I have to play a 50-year-old man onstage. And I have to figure out how I’m gonna do that.’
I was reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo—and that’s where I learned my lesson there; when I’m stuck on projects I consume other art, right? So, I ran into a chapter where she started narrating in second person, and I was like, ‘That’s how I’m gonna do it.’
Because I am conjuring my father; that’s a very personal story. It feels aligned with the intimacy that a theatre space can give.
Evy: Going back to the conversation of giving content to an audience in a particular form, I wanted to ask for your thoughts on how Chasing the Butterflies matters as a live performance.
Myka: Yeah… Well, I’ll start by saying I think this story is very personal to me, you know? And I think there’s something about theatre as a form that’s very intimate. Because I am conjuring my father; that’s a very personal story. It feels aligned with the intimacy that a theatre space can give. So, I think that’s number one. And then, there are certain aspects of the piece […] Like, the movement part. I am a very physical actor.
Evy: Yeah, I could see that.
Myka: [Laughs] I think those things can only really exist at their fullest onstage. Or I enjoy, at least, exploring that aspect onstage the most. And then there’s an aspect to it, [that] I’m talking to the audience, that seems important. It’s not film, where it’s all coming just from me.
The audience is always going to be a part of the performance.
In the theater, we say that there’s always a ‘third scene partner.’ Like, if it’s a two-hander, there’s a third scene partner. The audience is always going to be a part of the performance. Whether or not I’m interacting with them, they’re still a part of it. And I think because this piece is a lot about sharing something personal, and because it’s a solo show, one of the most fulfilling parts of doing that show is getting to see somebody and actually relate to them face-to-face. And I think that’s why I start the show by walking through the audience. I start by acknowledging that there is an audience, and welcoming them. Like, saying ‘Hi,’ and complimenting their outfit, and joking around, and playing around. To establish a relationship.
Like, ‘You’re here, and I’m here, and we’re gonna make the most of the time we have together.’
© Evy Ray (7/2/25) — Special for FF2 Media®
LEARN MORE/DO MORE
Visit Myka’s website here.
Follow Myka on Instagram for updates here.
Check out other shows happening at Pan Asian here.
CREDITS & PERMISSIONS
Featured Photo: Credit to Maddie Barkocy (2025)
Middle Photo: Selfie of Myka Cue with her co-directors taken by Myka, with Katusha Jin on her left & Sophie Zmorrod on her right.
Bottom Photo: Credit to Maddie Barkocy (2025)
All images provided by FF2 Team Member Katusha Jin & used with her permission. We are all so proud of Katusha & her colleagues!
