Vuthy Vichea is sixteen years old, Cambodian American. He loves hip hop and Dungeons and Dragons. He has thick-ass glasses. He is a weird kid in a place where weirdness can be fatal: Long Beach, California.

And since his best friend moved and his mother died, the only person he can talk to is a human skull he keeps hidden in a cookie jar.

Year Zero is a comedic drama about young Cambodian Americans — about reincarnation, reinvention, and ultimately, redemption.

“A very smart, sweet, honest and uncommonly moving new play…
Michael Golamco is a significant new dramatic voice.”

“Often surprising, invariably touching… Captures the emotionally complex lives of children of survivors who never quite feel “worthy,”… And the lure (and price) of assimilation.”

Jeff Recommended.

Year Zero began life as Heartbreaker, a ten minute play.

After being expanded to a full-length, Year Zero was first publicly read in March 2008
in New York City with Second Generation.

Year Zero was developed at Chicago Dramatists through its Many Voices Project, and was selected as its 2008 Grand Prize Winner. It was also a finalist for the 2009 Eugene O’Neill Theater Conference.

The play was further developed at Chicago’s Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater through its IGNITION: Emerging Playwrights of Color Initiative, a project supported by the Ford Foundation.

Year Zero world premiered at Victory Gardens in September 2009 and is coming to New York City in 2010.