To help diverse Bay Area communities feel connected and cultivate compassion through collaborative, original stage productions (e.g., multilingual shows). Then transition to screen to impact wider audiences and fund new local stage work.
Compassion Collab, started in 2026, aims to carry on part of my Great-Great-Grandmother's legacy while collaborating and adapting with our diverse local communities in modern times.
Mar Yick Shee, my Great-Great-Grandmother, was born in San Jose, California, in 1880. By the mid-1900s, she co-founded a nonprofit that eventually presented bilingual (Cantonese-English) theatrical plays for over 40 years around Chinese New Year. In San Francisco Chinatown, 150 to 300 patrons attended each performance for entertainment and were of different creeds and race/ethnicity. Decades after she passed, a group of us still worked on plays that provided opportunities for each other to practice values in weekly interpersonal interactions while inspiring the community through Ancient China cultural stories and entertainment. Research showed the plays were superior to traditional talks, as audiences resonated more emotionally and took more positive action afterward. The plays ended during COVID by 2021.
-Derek S. Chan
If you donate before 11/15/2026, over 77% of net proceeds goes to the multilingual cast of Gamblin' Life or Death — a rare cast who sing and act in 5 languages. 10% goes to our fiscal sponsor, PlayGround.