EUGENE MA (b. 1990) is an interdisciplinary performance maker and third-culture instigator. With his new company, DELIBERATE COLLISION (DC), he investigates Asian-centric third culture voices. He attempts to continually contextualize and place folks who don't fit neatly in boxes (just like him!) into the international discourse via international productions, performance training as well as cultivating new work incubation and thought leadership.
After teaching all over Asia this summer in 2024, Eugene threw caution to the wind once again and decided to center his international activities in Hong Kong: to focus more on mission-driven works through his newly registered company, DELIBERATE COLLISION, while staying active with teaching and research.
He is currently preparing two opera works for 2025; and has just devised (alongside 3 former local students) a draft of the first Deliberate production debuting in the U.K. In English! Before its eventual Cantonese language premiere.
DC is also thrilled to partner with Hong Kong Grand Opera and the Fringe Club, creative directing and steering their monthly STAND-UP OPERA series.
Two other cross-cultural works for the company were also developed at the early ideation of the company during the pandemic, thanks to invitations and grants from the US and Canada: Animus Anima -- Workshop Production (The Public Theatre, NY/ Brooklyn College) & a Vancouver Workshop that allowed us to specify the mixed-race identity at the core of the play, working with contributing actors of Japanese-mixed-race, and naturalized, Nisei & Sansei Japanese Canadian backgrounds; The Turandot Project -- a special Zoom workshop to commission an opera section into Cherry Lou Sy's experimental text - OAC/ Nightswimming.
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Trained as a DIRECTOR at New York University, the works he helmed have been seen all over America, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and Hong Kong – from new ensemble/solo works to modern classics to physical performances to new musicals and operas. He has also developed numerous new texts for performance, with particularly close collaborative relationships with Lisa Clair, Cherry Lou Sy, and Penny Pun.
The New York Times celebrated his work on Clair’s THE MAKING OF KING KONG, “I found it moving when the production, directed by Eugene Ma, pulled another switch at the end.” And WILD, his recent work with the Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra, played at the Rose Theater (UK) and garnered a 5-star review and warm reception from HRH Prince Edward. And Eugene was a resident director at the Flea Theatre, NY.
A lauded ACTOR in the US, Eugene performed under MacArthur-Genius Mary Zimmerman, physical comedy virtuoso Christopher Bayes, and as the comic lead in auteur Stan Lai Sheng Chuan’s English Language premiere of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land 暗戀桃花源. He also appeared in long runs at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Theatre for a New Audience, Yale Repertory Theatre, Seattle Rep, Berkeley Rep, and The Wallis in Los Angeles. A COMPOSER since childhood, Eugene was vetted by Yamaha to perform his duet at their quadrennial composers’ showcase in Tsumagoi, Japan at the tender age of ten. He has since music directed and composed for the Public Theater and Yale School of Drama, with one of his scores garnering a nomination at the Drama Desk Awards alongside Steve Martin!
An acclaimed ACTING TEACHER, he has held core faculty positions, teaching and directing at Columbia’s School of the Arts (Assistant Professor, Adjunct) and Yale School of Drama (Visiting Assistant Professor) in their MFA programs, and a handful of undergraduate programs, including the founding years of HK Baptist University's Global Screen Acting Program and Harvard TDM after his early years apprenticing at Yale and Juilliard under Prof. Christopher Bayes. In Beijing, he coaches celebrities and on major screen projects with the Dome Studio; and in Canada, he founded Performance Atelier Toronto, an acting studio and pedagogy research lab from 2022 to 2024.
