http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk1LBTLGVaE&feature=player_embedded#action=share

Start summer a little early with our raucous fourth Open Mic of the year, hosted by Jen Kwok and Ed Lin. This week will feature actress and writer Esther Chae—whose recent solo performance, So the Arrow Flies, was called “amazing and beautiful” by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang—and stand up comedian Brian Jian, who you should check outhere and here.

Esther K. Chae is an international award-winning actor/writer based in Los Angeles and New York. Her numerous credits as a performer include TV shows NCIS, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, The West Wing, The Shield, ER; and theatre stages such as Yale Repertory Theater, La Mama, Mark Taper Forum/ Kirk Douglas Theater, P.S. 122 and Harvard/A.R.T. Chae’s performances have been lauded as “talented” (Variety), “engaging” (Hollywood Reporter) – and may just “break your heart” (Asia Pacific Arts). Her most recent solo performance So the Arrow Flies, about a North Korean spy and the Korean-American FBI Agent who pursues her, was featured at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (“a powerful and compelling script… fascinatingly gripping” – ThreeWeeks Magazine), Ars Nova Theater Festival (NY) and the World Women’s Forum (Seoul). In 2009, it was invited to TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference of which she is an inaugural fellow. The play is being adapted into a feature film script.

Brian Jian was born and raised in New York. He performs stand-up comedy in clubs/colleges all over the city, and loves dogs and Guinness beer!