Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club Audiobook By Shakina Nayfack cover art

Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club

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Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club

By: Shakina Nayfack
Narrated by: Shakina Nayfack, Kate Bornstein, Annie Golden, Telly Leung, Jason Tam, Bianca Leigh, Ivory Aquino, Pooya Mohseni, Samy Figaredo, Angelica Ross, Liz Lark Brown, Ita Segev, Dana Aliya Levinson
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In this world premiere play, written by and featuring Shakina Nayfack, a vibrant, international group of transgender women band together at a hotel in Thailand to confront the challenges and joys of gender confirmation surgery. Despite the group’s warm welcome, Kina (Nayfack) prepares for her life-altering operation all alone. But a caring nurse (Ivory Aquino), a wise couple (Kate Bornstein and Annie Golden), and a karaoke-loving bellhop (Telly Leung) may be exactly who she needs to ignite her truest sense of self. WTF Associate Artistic Director Laura Savia directs this spirited comedy about a woman who tests the bonds of an unlikely sisterhood.

The playwright wishes to thank The Drama League's Beatrice Terry Residency, Daryl Roth, Natasha Sinha, Beehive Dramaturgy Studio, Playwrights Horizons, Rachel Jett, Daryl Roth, and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Theatre Institute.

Note: This play contains mature themes and language.

©2020 Shakina Nayfack (P)2020 AO Media LLC Entertainment & Performing Arts LGBTQIA+ Creators LGBTQIA+ Essentials Theater Women's Voices Funny Feel-Good Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking Witty Comedy

Go Behind the Scenes of Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club

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Shakina Nayfack
Laura Savia
Additional Credits

About the Creator

Star of the NBC sitcom Connecting... Shakina can also be seen in Amazon’s GLAAD award-winning Transparent Musicale Finale, which she helped write and produce with Joey and Faith Soloway, and the Hulu original comedy Difficult People, for which she was also a writing consultant. Shakina is also the voice of Hana in the English dub of Satoshi Kon’s anime classic Tokyo Godfathers, and has appeared previously on television in Jessica Jones (Netflix), The Detour (TBS), and on Broadway in 24-Hour Plays and The Red Bucket Follies. She is the Founding Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory in New York City, where she helped to develop hundreds of new musicals including Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Strange Loop and her own autobiographical glam rock odyssey, Manifest Pussy. Shakina is currently developing a television pilot based on her life story, an original movie for Lifetime Television, and a rock opera, JUNK, with the Swedish pop band Brainpool. Recognitions include The Lilly Award for Working Miracles, Theatre Resources Unlimited Humanitarian Award, The Kilroys List, Logo 30, and two-time Drama League fellow and OUT 100 honoree. More at www.Shakina.nyc (http://www.shakina.nyc/) and @shakeenz

About the Director

Laura Savia is the Associate Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Williamstown Theatre Festival, where she is in her tenth season. Directing credits include the world premieres of James Anthony Tyler’s Artney Jackson (Williamstown), Lucy Thurber’s Once Upon a Time in the Berkshires and Orpheus in the Berkshires (Williamstown), Lucy Thurber’s Unstuck (59E59/Throughline), and Bareknuckle (Vertigo Theatre) as well Ryan Haddad’s Hi, Are You Single? (Public Theater, The Guthrie, Woolly Mammoth). Her production of Jonathan Caren’s The Recommendation for IAMA won two Ovation Awards, including Best Production. Other directing credits include James Lescesne’s The Absolute Brightness of Leonardy Pelkey (City Theatre), Adam Rapp’s Red Light Winter (Itself Festival in Poland) and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale featuring Hoon Lee (Warren Miller Performing Arts Center). She has directed short plays by Rob Askins and Halley Feiffer for Naked Angels and Living Newspaper plays by Sarah Burgess and Don Nguyen (at A.R.T./Club Oberon, Joe’s Pub, and Le Poisson Rouge). She has developed work with Roundabout Theatre Company, New York Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Second Stage, Labyrinth Theater Company, Ars Nova, Playwrights Realm, Primary Stages, Rattlestick, and Ma-Yi Theater Company. Assistant directing includes Broadway’s The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino. Laura spent five seasons on the artistic staff at Atlantic Theater Company. She is an alum of the Drama League Directors Project and Northwestern University.

Featuring

Also Featuring

Featured Article: Audible Essentials—The Top 100 LGBTQIA+ Listens of All Time


While LGBTQIA+ creators have been around for millennia, it’s only recently that we’ve been hearing more diverse, more queer-authored, and more queer-performed stories about the entire spectrum of LGBTQIA+ experiences and identities. This list—just like the community it represents—is meant to be fluid. But most importantly, it’s meant to celebrate and reflect on the issues faced by LGBTQIA+ people everywhere.

Featured Article Audible Essentials The Top 100 LGBTQIA+ Listens of All Time

Dear Listener,

What did I learn about myself while giving voice to this story?
"When I left New York City for Chonburi, Thailand, I did so with the conviction that I would make it through the trails of gender confirmation completely on my own. I had launched a successful crowdfunding campaign (I called it “KickStartHer”) and used my first-ever solo show, One Woman Show, to give my colleagues and community some context for my transformation. I knew I had support behind me, but vowed that this rebirth was something I would do alone. It didn’t take me long to learn that you truly need a village to get a neovagina. In my case, that village was The Butterfly Club. I discovered that I had to let down my guard if I actually wanted to heal and that healing was about so much more than a surgical procedure. Recording this play at the height of a pandemic, with this wonderful ensemble isolated in our own homes, only served to underscore this need for human connection in times of great trial. We rely on one another to become the best version of ourselves. There is risk and vulnerability in that trust, but through it we can heal and be healed, all while unleashing unbounding joy." – Shakina Nayfack, creator and performer of Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club
Beautifully Written Story • Heartfelt Performances • Insightful Transgender Representation • Compelling Character Development
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
Sounds like a.... play! I didn't even think about the foley work until the interview at the end - I pressed play and saw the entire thing. I never once "rewound" the audio which is rarity with my audiobook experience. I was captivated by the story and it was well-staged - like old-timey radio! I'm looking forward to hearing more by this writer and director.

An Easy-to-Visualize Audio Performance

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First let me say that I am a cis man and I knew next to nothing about this play before I started listening. But I deeply respect the Williamstown Theatre Festival and wanted to listen to all of their plays.
When it first started I have to admit I was a little confused. There are a lot of characters and that is tricky when in an audible book. But after five minutes I just started over again and this time I got it. I am so glad I did because this play is amazing!
Theatre can take you to worlds that you have never explored. Learn about I ideas you have never thought about. And be with characters that you have never had a chance to meet. And Chonburi did all three of those things for me.
Chonburi is hilarious and yet heartbreaking. it made me gasp as my heart exploded with joy. The video on this play said that Ms. Nayfack wanted to write a play that explored the great Hotel plays of days gone past. I know many of those plays, "Grand Hotel, Hotel L Baltimore" and I think Ms. Nayfack has far exceeded those old chestnuts.
Congrats to Audible and the Festival for producing this major new work.
And big congrats to the cast for knocking my socks off. I hope I get to see this live and on stage sometime in the near future!

Wow!

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I have finished and left this book my device for a year now! I just can’t delete it because I have wanted to write a review, and yet all I can say is that it is a very intimate window into a life I have never considered. Well-written and played, interesting.

Well-written and played, interesting.

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When I first heard that Shakina Nayfack’s new play CHONBURI INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & BUTTERFLY CLUB would be produced as an Audible play instead of a fully staged production at WTF, I was sad. But how thrilling it was to listen to this piece on Audible and still feel so connected to the characters and the story. It’s so rare that we have stories about trans people written and performed by trans artists, and this play feels somewhat historic in that sense. And even without seeing a fully realized set, I totally felt like I was right there inside a hotel lobby at the top of the play, thanks to the many talents that went into this Audible version.

Historic and moving

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In Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club author Shakina Nayfack explores a tricky subject: trans women getting their gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. From personal experience Nayfack is able to create a full environment for her characters, who are at different stages of this process which touches all emotional buttons. "Kina" is the American we meet coming into the "Club" with an attitude and learns to appreciate her Butterfly Club members. Each character is seen as a real person who has positive and negative qualities. It's not always pretty, what happens before, during and after surgery, but you get a sense that these women are supporting each other as best they can. In spite of some horrific circumstances, in the end, it's not only gender, but friendship that emerges as the strong force in our lives.

Story We Never Hear Told With Compassion

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Visceral and deep, this has the power to change lives through listening. Well worth it!

Absolutely Adore this Play

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incredibly beautiful, poignant, funny, and touching. really amazing listen. so glad to have media like this.

astounding

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This was a good story.
I like how we are taken into this world and get to experience everything thru the eyes of the woman going on this journey.
I was not aware of this place, that people had to go so far with what should be avaliable in most modern cities.
I like that a story was told on how like butterflies they are all gathering in one place to meet up. To see each other support each other, give themselves strength.
The main thing I will take from this story is that we are all learning, even people within the community is evolving and adapting. I'm specifically talking about how they talked about things like "real woman" and "trans woman" even among themselves they were correcting themselves. And the word CIS woman and the importance ofbtalking openly about the journey and the vagina.
There was also the talk about pronouns and how you do get attack if you say your old fashion and don't understand. People usually interpreted to mean you are bias and thats why you don't want to use those words but you know using them and they to refer to one person can be confusing when all our lifes we are taught that they and them refers to many people.
We are all learning and the worst thing someone can do when we are learning is attack and judge. We shouldn't close doors.
One day we will get rid of pronouns, sexes and colors but until then we need to listen to each other.

Butterflies

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These are the kinds of stories we need to hear MORE! This representation is so needed. This was an absolute joy to listen to. The struggles, successes, fears and friendships of these women going through this important step in their gender confirmation is palpable in Shakina’s writing and in the performances of the actors. It was educational, new, hilarious, heartbreaking and inspirational all at the same time. Highly recommend.

A captivating piece of theatre

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This new play from Shakina Nayfack is so wonderfully uplifting. I started listening expecting to learn more of her experience, but was surprised at how funny it was, and how much I related to every character in it. This beautifully written window into the world of gender confirmation lays bare how much we ALL desperately want the world to see us the way we see ourselves.

Moving, funny, real, important

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