Moongate Productions is a multi-modal, multi-media creative hub that makes plays, films, documentaries and anything else it can but always with the aim to substantially and rapidly raise the profile of British-based East Asian performers. We are committed to creating and developing high quality projects that promote, and give free reign to, East Asian talent whilst at the same time challenging stereotyped portrayals.

Moongate is committed to doing this with a Pan-East Asian sensibility that celebrates and luxuriates in the true diversity of East and South East Asians (a land-mass much larger than Europe and featuring countless different nationalities, ethnicities and cultures). In order to challenge perceptions even further we aim to do this from a firmly “British” perspective that will dispel the ‘foreign-ness’ that supports a tokenistic and marginalised arena for artists of East Asian descent in UK media.

Moongate’s previous projects include:

2010 Night Lives (short film) written and produced by Jennifer Lim, co-directed by Jennifer Lim & Daniel York, funded by London Borough Film Fund.

2013 The Fu Manchu Complex (original stage play), written by Daniel York Loh, directed by Justin Audibert, produced by Mark Cartwright with Ovalhouse, funded by Arts Council England and Singapore International Foundation @fmccomplex The Fu Manchu Complex

2014 The Orphan Of Zhao Redux. Short film created as support material for The Contemporary Theatre Review journal about the 2012 RSC casting controversy, featuring 14 East Asian actors performing excerpts of text from various adaptations of, and inspired by, the Chinese classic The Great Revenge Of The Orphan Of Zhao.

2015 Dream Of Emerald Hill. Short film, funded by SG50, made in Singapore about the life of pioneering Singaporean stage actress Rosie Seow aka Kheng Lim, directed by Mingyu Lin, written by Daniel York and produced by Jennifer Lim @DreamEmeraldHil

In development:

Lady Precious Stream by S.I. Hsiung. A new production of this classic fusion of East and West theatre styles, once one of the most performed plays in the world, which reboots this witty Chinese theatre pastiche into a world of “hip-hop Peking Opera”. Developed with generous assistance from Arts Council England. Directed by Natasha Betteridge with music by D.J. Walde and choreography by Tommy Franzen. @Precious_Stream 

the forgotten of the forgotten a new play by Daniel York Loh based on the untold and hidden stories of the World War One Chinese Labour Corps who worked behind the lines assisting the allied war effort. Produced by Gemma Lloyd and to be developed at Theatre Royal Stratford East. @theforgotten_of

Moongate aims to create high-quality challenging work that bursts out of the “cultural niche” box and propels East Asians into the mainstream of British media by being sharp, funny, edgy and relevant. By creating work of a high artistic standard that will help free East Asian actors and artists from having to portray pale imitations of a mythical “culture” that is often a million miles from the everyday reality of the lives they lead and does not even do justice to the vibrancy and diversity of their cultural heritage.