About the Play:

A Perfect Bowl of Pho is a full-length musical with book and lyrics by Nam Nguyen, music by Wilfred Moeschter. Journey across the noodle of time and space as Nam Nguyen writes a genre-bending musical history of the Vietnamese diaspora, told through its foods – particularly the world-famous noodle soup pho. Expect rapping ancient kings, communist spies, and dancing sharks.

A Perfect Bowl of Pho is a fascinating exploration of Vietnamese history through a bowl of noodle soup. Nam Nguyen, a procrastination-prone Vietnamese Canadian university student, sets out with the vague ambition to write a musical about his diaspora as embodied by food, particularly the world-famous noodle soup pho. What follows is pure meta musical, genre-bending through thousands of years of history, featuring rapping ancient kings, communist spies, dancing sharks and refugees, and awkward first dates in suburbia. However, Nam eventually finds himself caught between his different characters as each argues what pho (the food and the show) truly represents, and he struggles to find an answer that will satisfy everyone – in the end, isn't this just a bunch of silly soup songs?

A Perfect Bowl of Pho originally premiered in 2017 at the University of Toronto Drama Festival. The show received a standing ovation and was awarded the President's Award for Best Production and the Audience Choice Award. It was subsequently developed at the 2018 Paprika Theatre Festival before a new production in 2019 at Factory Studio Theatre in Toronto and the 2022 Toronto Fringe Festival.

Cast: 12 characters

What people say:

"Hilariously and exhaustingly meta-theatrical… Nguyen's is a name to watch." — Toronto Star

"A fresh new musical that pulses with life, anarchic energy and invention." — NOW Magazine

About the Playwright:

Nam Nguyen is a Canadian playwright and lyricist of Vietnamese descent from Mississauga, Ontario. He was named one of NOW Magazine's breakthrough Toronto stage artists of 2019 following the premiere presentation of his musical A Perfect Bowl of Pho with fu-GEN Asian Canadian Theatre.