Peter Hsieh

A few screen grabs from my debut feature film Drive All Night which stars Yutaka Takeuchi, Lexy Hammonds, Sarah Dumont, and Johnny Gilligan.

Drive All Night is an ambitious, stylized drama that is equal parts fairy tale romance and neo-noir thriller. The film follows Dave, a swing shift taxi driver working in the city whose night takes an unexpected turn when he picks up Cara, a mysterious young woman with a dark secret and uncanny knowledge of retro arcade games.

He drives her around the city without quite knowing her motives and accompanies her on a number of seemingly random excursions - from getting drinks and playing arcade games, to picking up a mysterious duffel bag and breaking into a theater.

Unbeknownst to the pair, Lenny, a deadly hit-man sent by the head of a crime syndicate to investigate a string of recent odd occurrences is hot on their trail.

Every place he visits takes him one step closer but will he be able to catch them before it is too late? Things gets increasingly more surreal as they go further into the night. What will happen when the night ends?

This play to explore the concept of time. Time as rhythm. Time as distance. What does the passing of time look and sound like. What is the relationship between time and love, time and dreaming. Interstate is one of my most produced short plays, and I think it is because it is a love story, people like that, but on a deeper more visceral level it is about the passing and manipulation of time between two people who used to be strangers but are now in love.

Interstate follows Sarah who falls in love with an interstate trucker who comes into her Denny’s one night. They exchange phone numbers that first night and spend every waking moment thinking about the other, counting down the moments until they can meet again, hour by hour, mile after mile. Interstate had its world premiere 2014 at the T.Schreiber Studio Theater in New York, NY and was subsequently produced at the Fine Arts Association of Ohio that same year. The play has also been produced at various theaters and festivals in Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, and New York.

Interval, Impulse is a small play with some very big themes. I say it is a small play because it is only ten minutes long, can be performed with either 2 or three actors, and is presented on a bare stage with the option of a chair. The play is a story about identity, the importance of knowing who you are in and holding on to that knowledge in an ever changing and seemingly endless world. What is reality? How do we define ‘real’ when we can no longer tell the difference? Who wins the fight when its man versus technology.

Set in a futuristic North America, divided into sectors, mega cities, and engulfed in technology, where virtual reality competes with and outshines reality, a man tries to find the woman he once loved. Interval, Impulse was first produced 2013 Off-Off Broadway in New York by Nylon Fusion Theater Company. It was subsequently produced in Chicago by Revolution Theater Company for AbbieFest 2016 before returning to Nylon Fusion Theater Company 2018 as a Finalist for its Best of TROU shows.

I wrote this play my senior year at UCI in lieu of an essay that was suppose to be on theater of the absurd. I got an A.

Sunday Sundays is an experimental play that explores action without purpose against a deceptively tranquil and idyllic setting; people playing croquet on a nice day. The play starts with them posing as if in a painting while the lights slowly come up with gentle classical music playing. What happens is an absurd, comedy that showcases action without purpose and the fruitless efforts made in finding meaning in a meaningless world. Characters try and play croquet without knowing the rules. They go around in circles without making any progress or sense leading to a whimsical state of repetition and ultimately meaninglessness.

Sunday Sundays had its premiere in 2010 at West Valley College Theater. The play was produced for a second time at San Jose Rep in 2012 as part of their Emerging Artists Lab’s Late Night Series and at Fringe of Marin the same year. Latter productions of the play took place in New York, the U.K. and most recently Revolution Theater in Chicago, IL.

I was sitting in a rehearsal for one of my plays, an ensemble piece directed by Heather Noelle Robinson whom I met earlier that year, when she told every to make ‘forest’ noises. As you can expect there were critters and the sound of wind blowing through the the trees and for whatever reason I decided to loudly whisper ‘treeeeeeeeeee’ and Bill Davidovich, an actor in the play, looked at me and I look at him and we started laughing.

Tree is an absurdist one-minute play about one woman’s desire to know what it is like to chug a cold beer in the middle of the woods. It was first performed 2013 in Brooklyn, NY as part of Gi60’s international one-minute play festival. The play was subsequently produced by SF Theater Pub in San Francisco, CA, and Stage Left in Seattle, WA.

Principle Photography took place August 2019 and we shot in various locations around San Jose and San Francisco. Most of the cast and crew were from Southern California (Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego) but I thought it would be cool to shoot my debut feature film in San Jose were I grew up though it was more expensive due to travel costs and housing. We created quite an ambitious shooting schedule which required us to shoot between 8 to 13 pages a day meaning we had to move very quickly and were limited to how many takes I could get of each shot and how many different set ups we could do. Even with these constraints, we were able to get almost everything I wanted (thanks to my excellent cast and crew). Most of the film takes place at night so we had several overnight shoots on location, including two nights at SuperGood Kitchen and one at MiniBoss bar in downtown San Jose. Several scenes including the motel room scenes, red room dream sequence, performance art, and bits of the jazz club (dressing room and backstage) were shot at RedWall Studios and the Jazz club interior was filmed at City Lights Theater on their Cabaret set.

The majority of the driving scenes were filmed using video projections and and moving lights inside of large dark studio space large enough to fit a car, several large projection screens, and an entire film crew. We used CrossFit Kindred (I had started CrossFit the past year) as the studio space and filmed there for two days. Filming in a studio via projections was not only cheaper and safer but allowed more control over various elements (lighting, sound, camera angles, not having to pull over and find a place to use the restroom in the middle of the night).

Additional photography took place through November 2019 and were shot by Bay Area-based Director of Photography David Orr and a super small skeleton crew. I had went over budget and had to raise additional funding at that point and bringing back the original crew was unfortunately too costly. We shot the pick ups - a lot of which were city exterior and in-car-driving shots on the RED Gemini 5k with Sigma Zoom lenses which allowed for better low light capabilities and let us shoot wider to crop in (to get rid of the camera shake for those car scenes). We also shot some daytime scenes and a liquor store scene that I had decided to cut from principle photography due to time constraints. I had a really great time working with David and his crew and I was really happy with the shots we were able to get.

A coming-of-age family drama featuring two interweaving story arcs set 13 years apart. It is the late 90’s and Tori and Abby are teenage sisters growing up without their mother and a father who is always away. Abby works hard in school and excels in ballet while Tori rebels and gets herself in trouble when she starts dating a much-older bad boy named Ace. Fast forward 13 years and we meet Pete, a recent college graduate, who works as an overnight janitor, much to the chagrin of his mother. Their already tumultuous relationship gets further tested when the old Camaro that Pete buys off Craigslist - against his mother’s advice - breaks down and he doesn’t have enough money to get it running. This sends Pete into a dark place and motivates him to do something drastic. Tangerina was first produced 2012 on the West Valley College Theater Mainstage as a co-production between West Valley College and Parking Lot Theater. The play was later produced at Chapman University and was a top-five finalist for the 2015 Orange County New Play Festival in the full length play category.

What drew me to working on Rift Legion Wars was the endless possibilities that its universe offers - that and having a chance to work with Sam and Grayson who are good friends of mine. For this first episode, I went with a father and son story to set up the universe of Rift Legion Wars and to introduce Caelyn our conflicted protagonist. I pitched it to Sam, the creator of Rift Legion Wars (both the mobile game in development and the webcomic) and he liked it, pitched him the next three episodes and he liked those too. That’s how I became the principle writer on a webcomic.

I wanted to set up the next episode in a big way, with a lot of ‘bang’. What’s got more bang than a full on space assault?

While the first episode is tranquil in nature, focusing on Caelyn reflecting on his father and essentially setting up the world of Rift Legion Wars for the reader. Episode two starts off - quite literally - all guns a-blazin’. We meet General Wolfe Titus whose ship has been overrun by the Hive during a sneak attack.

Frost Llamzon who is the artist I work with on the webcomic does a really great job of bring my script and Grayson and Sam’s artistic vision to life. He’s also a super nice person and has wicked fast turnaround time. We were collectively trying to decide on a look for the Councilman Fowler character and I said ‘You know Christopher Lee?’ and well…

Episode four creates a new story line that focuses on the female republic marine that was with General Titus in episode two. She buys time for him to get to a ship and escape and we assume that she has died fighting off hive sentry. This episode we sees that she has survived the attack but that she’s not the only one…

Episode five follows Caelyn and Titus’s meeting with the Councilman in which they were both advised to wait and not try and go after the Hive. Titus decides to go against the will of Councilman Fowler and go after the Hive alone, while Caelyn stays behind.

The final panel of this episode has Caelyn looking out at Titus’s departing ship with a look of shame in his eyes. ‘Your father would’ve fought’ said Titus before departing and indeed that hits very close to home for Caelyn.

I am a fan of the jarring, Kafka-esque dream sequence. I’ve always loved them and though that this would be a cool way to show progression and Laina’s transformation. The shift in tone and color is important through the dream sequence, I wanted it to go from beautiful sunny day to unnatural looking nightmare mode and I think Frost really delivered here.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most unsettling things I read as a kid and so of course I jumped at the chance to work on an adaptation / re-telling of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale.

Set in an insane asylum where a young girl named Alice dreams and fantasizes an imaginary world where doctors, nurses, and patients are replaced with the colorful characters of Lewis Carroll’s well-loved classic. Co-written with Amy Zsadanyi-Yale, the Alice in Wonderland Prologue / Epilogue was first performed as part of West Valley College Theater’s 2011 fall semester main stage production of Alice in Wonderland.

A one-minute play about love. Jimmy and Morgan meet and immediately fall for one another. Maybe she likes me, he wonders. Maybe, just maybe, he’s the one, she tells herself. What I tried, and hopefully succeeded in, capturing was the feeling of instantly falling in love. Love at first sight. That very first moment. Maybe had its premiere 2013 at San Jose Rep as part of MixTapes Vol. 1 and Vol.2 which featured a collection of plays by Bay Area playwrights Megan Cohen, Peter Hsieh, Jeremy Cole, Nic A. Sommerfeld, and Rachel Kessinger.

The play saw subsequent productions in Brooklyn, NY as part of Gi60 2015 and in 2018 at Houston Community College Theater. It has also been published in Gi60’s anthology of one-minute plays.

Set in a dystopian future, Selling Point is a dark comedy told in three parts, examining high pressure sales, business negotiations, and the culture of spending. Matt is a fast talking organ harvester, collecting the freshest selections for his clients, Whitney is a down-to-business Salesperson who doesn’t take no for an answer, Matt and Marsha are a middle class couple looking to buy the latest in Organ Transplants, but it’s going to cost them. Selling Point had its premiere in 2012 at San Jose Repertory Theater as part SJREAL’S Late Night Series of Shows. The Play was produced again at City Lights Theater in San Jose, CA in 2013 alongside other short plays from Bay Area Playwrights.

A short play about a life long friendship. Lauren, a teenager just starting college, meets Shelley, a retired artist, on the beach and they develop an unlikely friendship that spans years. Lauren and the Ocean was first produced at West Valley College in 2010. The play was subsequently produced at the Fringe of Marin One-Act Play Festival in 2013.

It is a really simple play and quite easy to produce but I think the depth of the characters and the evolution of their relationship makes it interesting.

14 Pages. Action Comedy. Super Turbo Overdrive is a hyper-stylized action comedy that’s American Pie meets Akira, Superbad meets Mad Max.

Matt and Steve have been best friends since childhood but their relationship gets complicated when when Matt gets into Yale and can’t stop talking about it. After a heated exchange, involving their a 1v1 round of their favorite video game, Steve asks Dorothy, Matt’s super attractive single mother, out on a date which she agrees to in order to teach the boys a lesson. Things get really crazy when Steve’s girlfriend Amy finds out about the date and tells Steve’s parents. What happens next is something straight out of anime / graphic novel and blow your mind!

Super Turbo Overdrive is currently on its very successful festival / screenwriting competition run, winning awards at Los Angeles Film Awards, Five Continents International Film Festival, Die Laughing Film Festival, and more. The reception from readers and festival organizers have been very positive and am hoping to either sell it, produce it with funding, and ultimately share it with audiences on the big screen in the not too distant future. People have been wanting a film like this and I know they are going to love it!

108 pages. Drama. The Statue Garden is an adaption of my award winning full length play Tangerina. It is a coming-of-age family drama that features two interweaving story arcs set 15 years apart.

It is 90’s and Tori and Abby are teenage sisters growing up without their mother and a father who is always away. Abby works hard in school and excels in ballet while Tori rebels and gets herself in trouble when she starts dating a much-older bad boy named Ace. Fast forward 15 years and we meet Tye, a recent college graduate, who works as an overnight janitor, much to the chagrin of his mother. Their already tumultuous relationship gets further tested when the car that Pete buys off Craigslist - against his mother’s advice - breaks down and he doesn’t have enough money to get it running. This sends Pete into a dark place and motivates him to do something drastic.

The Statue Garden is currently on its festival run and has received praise from readers across the globe, garnering wins at Festigious in Los Angeles and Red International Screenplay Contest in Italy. A lot of the themes explored in The Statue Garden are ones that people can relate to and the struggles that the characters go through are real and I believe that is what makes this a really strong script that deserves to get seen on the big screen.

This was one of the first plays I had written and the second play that I had produced. I wanted to write a high energy play that had a lot of movement and conflict, something fast paced and absurd to juxtapose all those ‘sit down and talk at each’ plays.

Kip and Ron like drink soda and eat carrots while contemplating the mysteries of the universe. One day Ron convinces Kip that he can read Kip’s mind and sends Kip spiraling into frenzied paranoia. Can Ron with the help of their level-headed friend Clara save Kip before it is too late? Game Plan / Floor Plan was first produced in 2009 at SPROUT Festival at the University of California, Irvine and saw subsequent productions in Santa Cruz and New York in latter years.

MixTapes was a collection of short plays inspired by songs and written by local authors. I came up with the idea of having a show where short plays were performed in a sort of mix tapes style. If you were to give someone a ‘mix tape’ of plays from Bay Area playwrights, this wouldn’t be a bad mix.

Along with myself, I recruited Jeremy Cole, Rachel Bublitz, Megan Cohen, and Amber Sommerfeld and we got together and wrote some short plays. MixTapes performed at San Jose Repertory Theater as part of SJREAL’s Late Night Series of shows and had good audience reception and was overall a very fun experience.

A monologue about life and death. A man finishes eating his tuna sandwich sitting in his favorite chair and is momentarily visited by the Grim Reaper. He struggles with the idea of death, the circumstances of his passing, and recounts certain moments in his life. Tuna Sandwich was produced by Parking Lot Theater in 2011 and produced again 2012 at Hollywood Fringe Festival as part of Autumn and Other Plays.

Set in the 1800’s American Midwest, Mack and Bill sit out around a campfire in the middle of the woods, having dinner and making small talk. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that Mack is colluding with Bill’s wife, Abigail, to try and kill Bill in the woods so they can elope but Bill might have something else in mind. The Long and Lonely Howl was first produced in 2009 at the University of California, Irvine for their World Premiere Weekend Festival. The play was produced again in 2011 by Parking Lot Theater and once again in 2012 for Hollywood Fringe Festival as part of Autumn and Other Plays.

The Long and Lonely Howl was actually the first play I ever had produced. I directed it myself during my senior year of college and we didn’t have any available rehearsal space so we rehearsed on the top floor of a parking structure on campus which work well since Southern California has year round nice weather and the play is set outdoors.