Award-winning composer/lyricist Timothy Huang (The View from Here, And the Earth Moved) has launched a Rockethub.com crowd funding campaign for a workshop of his latest passion project, a new musical called Costs of Living.

Huang was inspired to create Costs of Living after reading Night and Day, an article which appeared in the New York Times in 2009, that tells the story of two immigrant cab drivers who take opposite shifts off the same medallion.

While the day shift driver (Eng) encounters successes, his night shift partner (Chin) continues to encounter obstacles until the two find themselves on opposite sides of an ever widening gap and in a dangerous escalation that leaves one dead and the other brutalized.

It is, at its heart, a human story, an American story and a cautionary tale lending voice to the unspoken dangers of freedom without social consciousness or oversight. It is a story of love and country, resilience and responsibility, the price of freedom and the costs of living.

“The last ten years of my career have been about finding ways to make the things that move me move other people,” said Huang. “And with tremendous support and feedback from the Asian American community and the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop (where this project originated) I feel like Costs of Living has found a unique balance.

Are You Truly Free?

By Marilyn Tam 

The Asian American International Film Festival handed out the 2012 Awards for feature and short films before the closing night screening of Michael Kang’s Knots, at the Clearview Chelsea Cinemas in New York on August 5, 2012. The awards ceremony was emceed by spoken word artist Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai.

Knots director Michael Kang and writer and star Kimberly-Rose Wolter at the 35th Asian American International Film Festival Closing night screening of Knots, at the Clearview Chelsea Cinema in New York on August 5, 2012. Photo by Lia Chang

This year, the Asian American International Film Festival, presented by Asian Cinevision (ACV), featured 50 New York premieres-narrative and documentary features, and shorts-of all genres from The Philippines, Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, UK, Canada and across the Asian Diaspora.

Presenter Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, a spoken word artist, presents the AAIFF Audience Choice Award for Narrative Feature to Lily Mariye for Model Minority at the Clearview Chelsea Cinemas in New York on August 5, 2012. Photo by Lia Chang

Audience Choice Awards:

Lily Mariye’s Model Minority (photo courtesy of Nice Girl Films)

The Audience Choice Award for Narrative Feature was presented to Lily Mariye, an actor, screenwriter and director, whose impressive debut feature MODEL MINORITY, follows the story of L.A. teenagers trying to navigate the treacherous world of peer pressure, drug dealers, juvenile hall and dysfunctional families.

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