Film Showing and Q&A: “The Dao of Thao”
Watch The Dao of Thao followed by a conversation and Q&A with Executive Producer W. Kamau Bell and Consulting Producer Kelly Rafferty.
The Dao of Thao is a feature documentary by director Khai Thu Nguyen that follows acclaimed queer, Asian American comedian Thao P. Nguyen over two years as she develops her latest one-woman show at Stage Werx Theater in San Francisco. Grappling with the pressure of past success—her previous work having been named one of KQED’s Top 10 Bay Area Plays—Thao collaborates with directors W. Kamau Bell and Martha Rynberg to create a performance that blends comedy and drama to confront sexuality, motherhood, and the complexities of her history as a "stateless" refugee born in Thailand.
The film normalizes conversations about diverse experiences of queerness, capturing her struggle of using art and comedy to navigate her identity and the erasure she often feels as a bisexual woman of color. Woven through her comedy are vulnerable conversations with her immigrant parents highlighting deep nuances of intergenerational communication. While initially worried about the ethics of sharing her family's stories, Thao’s narrative shifts from a quest for individual identity to a deep realization of communal belonging. By opening night, Thao moves past rigid scripts for her identity and uses comedy and art as an empathetic bridge across cultural and generational difference.
