In the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the Year of the Horse. It also happens to be playwright Wai Yim’s zodiac sign, which feels serendipitous as he prepares to debut his play, “The Great Race” — a retelling of the fable behind the Chinese zodiac — at The Rose Theater this April.
The story goes that the Jade Emperor needed a way to measure time, so he announced a race across the river. The first 12 animals to finish would each have a year named after them in the zodiac. As the animals make their way across the river, it’s revealed that each comes with its own strengths, weaknesses, and surprises.
“I want people to know about the origin story, you know, of how this fable came about,” Yim explained. “Everybody knows about Medusa, everybody knows about Hercules, nobody knows about ‘The Great Race.’ Why not?”
He said many people may be aware of the animals but not the origin story, and he wants to change that while also sharing his culture.
“I want the AAPI audience to feel seen,” he said.
The production not only brings an ancient folktale to life, but also tells the story of an artist whose own journey mirrors the perseverance found within the legend itself.
Yim is originally from Hong Kong. His parents met there after his mother escaped the Vietnam War and his father escaped the cultural revolution. When extended family on his mother’s side fled to the United States as refugees, they sponsored Yim’s family so they could follow. There was a lot of uncertainty in China at the time, with Hong Kong about to return to Chinese rule from Britain.
Yim said moving from a high-tech metropolis to Nebraska, where everything was closed by 9- 10 p.m., was a culture shock.
“I have never seen this much open space in my life,” he said. “Do people get food after 10? Do they even go out? I was in such shock because you know, Hong Kong never sleeps.”
Without a car and barriers to public transportation, getting around was a challenge too.
“It was very lonely, traumatic and horrible,” he said.
Yet Yim added the concept of the American dream intrigued him, and the experience ultimately gave him unexpected grit and courage.
“Either you be miserable all your life or try to make a change,” he said. “Just work hard, just push through, knock on every door, pound the pavement and try everything that with all your might and just work hard and you get your dream.”
Yim’s dream was to be an artist.
“I was a dreamer. I wanted to be a pop star. I want to act. I want to be on the screen,” he recalled.
He soon found a welcoming home in his new setting of Omaha: theater.
Although Yim learned how to read and write English in Hong Kong, speaking the language was a whole other challenge to overcome. Performing in a musical in high school helped him work on pronunciation, and that changed everything.
“Theater was one of the big turning points of my life. Theater saved my life in many increments of my life journey,” he said.
Yim said musical theater was a way for him to blend his love for acting and singing.
“That’s what I wanted to do. If I can’t be on the TV screen, I’ll be on Broadway, that was the big dream,” he said.
From that point on, Yim set his sights on performance art.
He took dance lessons, vocal lessons, and finished his degree at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. But because Omaha didn’t offer many theater opportunities at the time, he inevitably found his way to a bigger city after graduation — Chicago.
Still, his journey as an artist wasn’t linear. Like the animals in “The Great Race,” there were some unexpected detours. He spent a couple of nomadic years traveling the world, navigating a “toxic” relationship, and ping-ponging between his family in Omaha and Chicago.
Then, a mentor encouraged Yim to choreograph a show in Omaha, which reignited his creative spark. He started teaching a Movement for the Actor class at UNO.
“And through all that was leading me to the next big change of my life, which was auditioning for a play in Chicago,” he said.
The play was “The White Snake” by Mary Zimmerman, a Tony-winning director coincidentally from Lincoln, Nebraska. The production, based on a Chinese legend, introduced Yim to the world of epic storytelling on stage. He was cast as the narrator, the brother-in-law, and the Stag Spirit.
“That changed my life,” he explained. “I got my break. I got my union card, and then the people in Chicago started to notice me. I got an agent. And from that point on it has been smooth sailing.”
During the pandemic, Yim moved back to Omaha to help care for his parents. When everything was shut down, there was nothing left to do but write.
Then, Yim’s father passed away.
“My father died because of COVID and the grief was so much that I just couldn’t process it,” he said.
Friends encouraged him to write down his emotions and turn them into art. At first, Yim was hesitant. He didn’t know if he could write dialogue.
“And they were like, ‘Just write what you know. You don’t have to write anything fancy,’” he recalled.
And so, he did. Thus began his playwriting journey. When Bluebarn Theatre included the finished piece as part of its workshop series, it gave him the confidence he needed to keep writing.
Around that time, The Rose Theater was starting its playwriting unit and was accepting pitches and concepts. Yim felt the urge to try his hand at writing a children’s play.
He pitched two ideas — one was about The “Great Race,” partially inspired by his experience with The White Snake. The pitch was accepted.
The play is directed by Alan Muraoka of Sesame Street. They originally connected through colleagues at the Token Theater in Chicago and developed a collaborative creative process. Muraoka’s experience with puppetry made him an ideal fit for the production.
“So I texted Alan, ‘Hey, do you want to direct a play in Omaha?’ And he said, ‘Send me the script.’ And I sent him the script and he loved it. And he said, ‘Yes, I will do it.’ And voilà, he is in Omaha,” Yim recalled.
To Yim, it’s meaningful to celebrate his culture and create opportunities for himself and his friends, rather than wait for opportunities to come — especially given the typecasting many Asian actors experience.
“I’m waiting for them to produce ‘The King and I.’ I’m waiting for them to produce ‘South Pacific.’ I’m waiting for them to do ‘Miss Saigon.’ I’m just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. And I know that if I audition for ‘My Fair Lady,’ I would not get anything except dancer number four. If I audition for ‘Mary Poppins,’ I know I’ll be in the chorus,” Yim said. “It’s not like I’m an overachiever. It’s necessary in a way that if I need to make myself a professional artist, I have to grab every single opportunity that I can get at. And if I need to create my own opportunity, I must.”
And so he wrote “The Great Race.”
Yim first remembers hearing the fable on a storybook cassette purchased by his mother and was instantly enamored by the back stories of each animal, how they interact with each other, and how the fable translates to real life.
For example, why does the Chinese zodiac leave out the cat?
“The rat was supposed to be friends with the cat, but the cat was sleeping too much,” he explained. “The rat was like, ‘I want to go to the race and you’re not waking up. Okay, I’m going to go by myself now.’ And then the rat eventually became the first animal that crossed the river. The cat was left behind and forgotten.”
Yim said that’s the legend behind why cats always chase mice.
He explained the fable is not about winning the race and being first, but rather helping each other along the way.
“The dragon was late to the race because the dragon was trying to help the village people,” Yim said. “And then the ox was helping the rat to cross the river. At the end, it’s a harmonious circle, 12 animals all together.”
Yim explained that there are many lessons to be learned from folklore, particularly not to make assumptions or judgments about others.
“You don’t know what they’ve been through, just the same as the animals in “The Great Race.” Everybody thinks that, ‘Oh, pig must be lazy, that’s why the pig is the last to cross the finish line.’ But was he being lazy, or because something else?” Yim asked.
In the fable, the pig stops along the way to eat and nap, which can be symbolic of stopping to enjoy life and balancing hard work with rest.
Yim’s favorite animals in the zodiac are the horse and the dragon, both of which have ties to his family and backstories he can relate to.
The horse and the snake were neck and neck, but the horse was too arrogant and lost in the last moments to the snake. Yim said it taught him not to brag too early or too much, because you never know who is behind you, ready to slither through and take your place.
Yim also explained how the fable highlights that things are not always as they seem. For example, the dragon is considered to be a frightening creature, but it finished later in the race because it stopped to help a village.
Despite all the lessons woven throughout the fable, Yim was intentional about making the play feel light. Rather than presenting the story as an obvious moral lesson, he weaves themes like kindness, empathy, and bullying naturally into the narrative alongside humor, song, and dance.
For Yim, the journey leading up to writing “The Great Race” was the accumulation of many experiences that set the stage for the production to come to life.
Yim said if there’s anything he wants people to take away from his production, it’s to be kind.
“Everybody has their own stories, and if we can be kind and actually know the backstory before judging, I think it will make the world a better place,” he said.
“The Great Race” runs April 17 through May 3 at The Rose Theater.