Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay

2025 Mid-Career Professional Development Grantee | $5,000

Buried by the Garden in Little Mekong

Lao American playwright Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay will use the funds to conduct a 30-hr workshop of the first draft of the playscript, BURIED BY THE GARDEN IN LITTLE MEKONG, with professional actors, a director, and a dramaturg.

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American writer. W. Kamau Bell, the host of CNN’s “United Shades of America,” called her work “revolutionary.” She’s a recipient of a Sally Award for Initiative from the Ordway Center for Performing Arts which recognizes bold and strategic leadership that has created artistic projects and programs never before seen in Minnesota that have significantly impacted and strengthened the state. She’s best known for her play KUNG FU ZOMBIES VS CANNIBALS and children’s book WHEN EVERYTHING WAS EVERYTHING. Her plays include KUNG FU ZOMBIES VS SHAMAN WARRIOR, DEAD COPS IN LITTLE MEKONG, BURIED BY THE GARDEN IN LITTLE MEKONG, TITLE IX, and HMONG LAO FRIENDSHIP PLAY. Her work has been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (NY), Theater Mu (MN), Lower Depth Theater (LA), Asian Improv Arts (IL), and elsewhere. Saymoukda is currently a Kennedy Center REACH Office Hours Artist in Residence, a Playwrights Center Core Writer, a Bush Fdn Leadership Fellow in playwriting, a Mellon Fdn Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu, a Jerome@Camargo Artist in Residence in Cassis, France, and a MN State Arts Board grantee. Other awards include grants and fellowships from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Bush Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation, MAP Fund, Playwrights’ Center, Forecast Public Art, and dozens more. She’s been an artist in residence at Everwood Fdn and by direct invitation at The Fields at Rootsprings (MN), Hedgebrook (WA), and Djerassi (CA). She’s an advisory board member of the nonprofits More Than A Single Story and the Asian Pacific Islander American Film Collective. Other community contributions include serving on the City of Saint Paul Cultural STAR Board and Governor Tim Walz’s State Poet Laureate Program Design Committee and Interview & Selection Committee. Her upcoming plays include commissions from Mixed Blood Theatre (MN 2025), Theater Mu (MN 2026), and InterAct Theatre Co. (PA 2026).

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay was a Forecast 2018 Early-Career Project Grantee and a Forecast 2021 Mid-Career Professional Development Grantee.

The McKnight Foundation generously enables Forecast to provide Professional Development Grants for mid-career artists seeking to expand their work in the field of public art. Forecast mid- and early-career grants are designed to support independent projects, leadership development, professional development, risk-taking, multidisciplinary approaches, and collaborative problem-solving in the field of public art.