Behind the scenes with Haley Yiu

We interviewed the cast and crew of Another Life to offer a sneak peek into the characters, the writing process and more. Haley Yiu is part of the writing team with Yanni Ng and plays Joey Yang. Joey was born in the UK and is unsure of where they fit in. Where did the idea for Another Life come from? We wanted to create a show that could provide a glimpse into the life of East Asians in the UK, so we decided to conduct a survey to help inspire us and to better understand those struggles and experiences. The results showed a range of experiences based on the varying ages and backgrounds, so we created multiple characters who could properly represent them. We soon realised that the characters had such unique perspectives that they each deserved their own time in the spotlight, which is why we ended up creating vignettes instead. What was your writing process like? I'm quite methodical when it comes to my writing process. I started off by doing some research online and going through the survey results. This was to help me better understand the characters I would be writing, especially since the specific characters I wrote were quite different from myself in both experience and background. While I looked through those surveys, I would note down any quotes I wanted to include in the show as they helped me hone in on the themes and character traits I wanted to include. Afterwards, I would focus on the structure of the story to best portray the characters on stage. Finally, I would begin to write and edit through the work until completion. What are the challenges of writing and directing a verbatim-inspired play?