Get insight into the playwright’s inspiration for The Great Leap!

“The Great Leap” written by Lauren Yee is her turn on the basketball court. According to director Rob Lutfy, “Yee’s plays often have at their core a family secret that needs to be revealed for catharsis to occur”. In the play, the character of Manford is loosely based on Yee’s own father who was considered the best basketball player in San Francisco’s Chinatown despite his shorter stature. Yee connects her Dad’s personal story to a pivotal moment in Chinese history where the costs for taking a charge or driving to the hoop are more than a foul shot.

“Growing up, my father played basketball. every day, all night, on the asphalt courts and rec center floors of San Francisco Chinatown. It was the only thing he was good at.

He was never good enough that he was going to play for the NBA or even at the college level, but for a 6’1″ chinatown kid from the projects, he was good. Really good.

I know this because even today, people still stop him on the street and try to explain to me what a legend he was. They tell me his nickname (spider), his position (center), and his signature move (the reverse jump shot). Then they will tell me about China.

My dad’s first trip to china was in the ’80s playing a series of exhibition games against china’s top teams. At their first game, my dad and his American teammates faced off against a Beijing team of three hundred-pound seven footers that demolished my dad’s team. It was the first of many slaughters.

Today he no longer plays, but his head is still in the game. He will walk up to tall young men at checkout counters, parking lots, and sporting events, and ask them if they’ve ever considered playing basketball. And no matter the answer, he proceeds to give them a master class in technique right then and there.