Celine Song hoped her latest play, Endlings , would mark the start of a new creative chapter. Though the drama wound up a theatrical casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, shes choosing to see it as a success story nonetheless.

Its a miracle any time a show happens, Song told HuffPost in an interview. My job is done when I finish the script, but for the actors and the stage managers, thats when the main part of their job begins doing it in front of an audience. One of my actors, her family had tickets to see it that weekend. Knowing how good her work was, and that her family was there to see her thrive of course, the COVID-19 shutdowns were more than necessary, but for that to be cut short was heartbreaking.

Endlings follows three Korean women known as haenyeos , who make their living by free diving to the ocean floor to harvest seafood. Soon the haenyeos all older than 70 are revealed as conduits for a secondary narrative about Ha Young (Jiehae Park), a New York writer who is grappling with just how much ownership she has of her Korean-Canadian heritage.

And, by all accounts, the play had the makings of a hit. The off-Broadway production was directed by Sammi Cannold , known in Manhattans thespian circles for giving Evita a feminist reimagining, and it featured a splashy set design by Jason Sherwood , who created the stage for the 2020 Academy Awards. Its cast included Wai Ching Ho hot off a scene-stealing, big-screen turn in Hustlers and Emily Kuroda of Gilmore Girls .

Endlings was one of nine works by writers of Asian descent that were slated to be produced in New York in 2020. Song can be grateful her play made it further than Hansol Jungs Wolf Play or Qui Nguyens Poor Yella Rednecks , both of which have yet to be staged before a paying audience in New York. Plans for her plays three-week run at New York Theatre Workshop , however, were canceled just three days after its March 2020 opening as performance spaces across the country shuttered to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

A year later, the playwright remains shaken but not deterred by the experience. Shed anticipated breaking up with theater prior to writing the play and opted to reflect her Asian identity throughout its script in a way shed never done before. That, she believes, is an achievement in and of itself especially since it preceded a troubling surge in anti-Asian hate across the country.

Speaking to Song, its easy to spot the parallels between her life and that of Ha Young, her onstage analogue. The 32-year-old was born in South Korea and emigrated to Canada at age 12. Both of Songs parents were successful artists in Seoul and encouraged their daughters interest in writing for the stage and screen. As a Korean-Canadian, however, she found herself striving to emulate the voices of white men like Edward Albee and Bertolt Brecht a natural reaction, she said, to critics whod accused female writers of navel gazing. It didnt help that the best-known representations of Asians in commercial theater were revivals of older musicals like The King and I and Miss Saigon , both of which have been criticized for what many perceive as racist overtones.

Were told our whole lives to be open when were writing, to put as much of ourselves into our work as possible, she said. Its all about being honest, real and true to oneself but suddenly that turns into, That persons being too self-indulgent, especially toward young women of color. Theres an immediate feeling of taking up space that wasnt reserved for you, and understanding white men is something Ive learned because of my survival instincts.

When Song sat down to write Endlings, she thought about her grandmother, who still lives in Seoul, and her mother.

As an immigrant, you feel like youre an investment of some kind, because you know what your parents gave up for you to be here, she said. Youre not just living your life, youre living your parents lives, too. Thats what my play is about. I wanted my mom to know I understood that.

The off-Broadway production of Endlings, however short-lived, came at a critical time for Asian writers and performers in theater. A 2019 report released by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition found that while 33% of all roles on New York stages went to performers from marginalized groups in the 2016-17 season, Asian actors filled just 7.3% of those roles.

Though Song is wary that the array of works by Asian playwrights intended for 2020 will be a one-season quota, there have been several signs of improvement. Producers are said to be eyeing a Broadway transfer for David Henry Hwangs Soft Power , a play with a musical that featured a mostly Asian cast and skewered U.S. presidential politics, after its 2019 engagement at New Yorks Public Theater was extended twice. And before she was Mindy Chen on Netflixs Emily in Paris , Ashley Park was set to star in the New York City Center Encores! production of Thoroughly Modern Millie , featuring an updated script likely to have omitted the Asian stereotypes present in the 2002 original. (The show, however, was canceled as COVID-19 took hold.)

Amid the pandemic, Song has kept busy with other projects. In November, she won critical acclaim for staging a production of Anton Chekhovs The Seagull via a Twitch stream of The Sims for New York Theatre Workshops fall 2020 season. And though shes tight-lipped on specifics, shes set to direct a film later this year.

Meanwhile, shes hopeful theater artists will use this unexpected downtime to start from scratch while taking the lessons learned during the pandemic into account.

I think things have gotten clearer in terms of the politics a piece of art can contain, she said. We should reconsider the intense corporatization of theater and accept that its a bunch of people in a room telling a story. We all have a new appreciation for the form because weve really learned its different than Netflix.