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Diana Oh
Person of Asian descent wearing a orange tank top and standing on stage singing into a microphone and strumming a wooden guitar
Oh in 2016
Born
Yea Bin Oh

(1986-09-29)September 29, 1986
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
DiedJune 17, 2025(2025-06-17) (aged 38)

Diana Oh (September 29, 1986 – June 17, 2025), also known as Zaza,[1][2] was an American playwright, actor, singer-songwriter and musician who was known for the off-Broadway show titled My Lingerie Play.[1][3][2]

Early life and education

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Oh was born Yea Bin Oh on September 29, 1986, in Los Angeles, California, to professors who had emigrated to the U.S. from South Korea in the 1970s. They attended Beverly Hills High School before earning a degree in theater at Smith College in 2008 and an MFA from the Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 2010.[1]

Career

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After graduating college, Oh was cast to play Marisol in the 2013 off-off-Broadway comedy play Frankenstein Upstairs[4] and assorted characters in the 2015 American premiere of Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.[5][6] In 2016, they had a role in the film How to Be Single, and in the threatre, they played a Dandy Minion in the premiere of A 24-Decade History of Popular Music[1] and Number Four, a comfort woman, in Hansol Jung's Among the Dead.[7]

From 2014 to 2017, Oh staged My Lingerie Play (stylized as {my lingerie play}), a series of 10 art/performance installations at public areas and small theatres in New York and Washington D.C., as well as on the internet.[8][9] In the initial eight performances, Oh stood on a soapbox wearing just their underwear, a black hat, and sunglasses, holding two brown paper bags on which they had written about slut-shaming, street harassment, and violence against women.[10][9][8][11] Some performances involved additional people,[11] and Oh invited spectator participation at the installations.[9] These concluded in October 2017 with a concert performance, titled {my lingerie play} 2017: Installation #9: THE CONCERT AND CALL TO ARMS!!!!!!!!!, the final installation, at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York, with final outdoor performance (Installation 10/10 (The FINAL Final Installation)) scheduled afterwards at Washington Square Park.[9][8]

The concert performance was just under two hours long and featured music performed by Oh and their band; The New York Times descried the show as "more of an indie band concert" than a traditional play.[12] The show began with Oh in a bathrobe on a soapbox with paper bags inviting the audience to write messages on their own bags.[9] Audience members were given bubble wands to blow during the performance and invited to dress up with body glitter, temporary tattoos, jewelry and other cosmetics at a "shimmer station".[12] As the show went on, Oh undressed to reveal their "mostly shoplifted" underwear[9] and discussed their life,[13] human sexuality and sexual harassment,[12][9] gender, race[12] and racism,[9] transphobia,[13] and current events including the Pulse nightclub shooting and the 2016 United States presidential election.[9] A central theme being liberation, Oh also went topless,[9] held what the Time Out New York magazine termed a "funny and genuinely erotic" discussion about consent with an audience member they made out with,[12][13] and invited other audience members to have their heads shaved on stage. The show ended with audience members standing around the edge of the theatre, holding the brown paper bags they themselves had written on earlier.[9][12]

In early 2018, Oh began planning an additional performance of My Lingerie Play, this time in Massachusetts, at the invitation of the director of the American Repertory Theater. However, after talking with a spiritual counselor, Oh decided to stop performing the play, and was instead offered a residency at the theatre. The five installations they produced, Clairvoyance, began in October 2018 and was scheduled to run through April 2019.[14] It involved, among other activities, staging "Chosen Family Portraits" with the audience and planting trees at Harvard University.[2][14] Also in 2018 and 2019, they played Devon in the webseries Queering[15][16] and Gretchen in the play Georgia Mertching is Dead,[17][18] acted in a tour of Parable of the Sower,[14] and participated in The Public Theater's Emerging Writer's Group.[19] While at The Public Theatre, Oh developed and first performed their play My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre.[20][21] Oh and the cast returned in 2020 to perform the play on Zoom for the Ma-Yi Theater Company, where Oh was a writer.[2][21]

Oh's best-known works also included The Infinite Love Party, described as "all-night slumber party at the off-off-Broadway Bushwick Starr that contained a potluck, dance party, a working swing, an open mic, and live music from Oh".[2] In 2022, they were awarded a Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting by The New York Community Trust.[22] For the 2024 Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival, Oh wrote and directed the play A Rare Bird.[23] Oh and playwright Lloyd Suh were commissioned by the Ma-Yi Theater Company in 2023 to write a musical titled The Science Fair Project, which was still in progress at the time of Oh's death.[24][1]

Personal life and death

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Oh described themselves as genderfluid in 2016[15] and went by they/them pronouns at the time of their death.[1][25] They also identified as a witch.[14]

Oh was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.[1] They died by suicide at their home in Brooklyn, New York City, on June 17, 2025, at the age of 38.[1]

Credits

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Theatre

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Year Title Role Notes Ref.
2013 Frankenstein Upstairs Marisol [4]
2015 Chimerica Assorted characters [5][2][6]
2016 A 24-Decade History of Popular Music Dandy Minion [1]
2016 Among the Dead Number Four [7]
2017 {my lingerie play} 2017: THE CONCERT AND CALL TO ARMS!!!!!!!!! [8]
2019 The Infinite Love Party [26]
2019 Clairvoyance [14]
2019 Georgia Mertching Is Dead Gretchen [17][18]
2019, 2020 My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre [21]
2024 A Rare Bird Writer/director, credited as Zaza Diana Oh [23][27]

Filmography

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Year Title Role Ref.
2016 How to Be Single Sign in Lady [2]
2018-2019 Queering Devon [15][16]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins-Hughes, Laura (June 27, 2025). "Diana Oh, Passionate Voice for Queer Liberation in Theater, Dies at 38". The New York Times. Retrieved June 29, 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Tran, Diep (June 20, 2025). "Experimental Theatre Maker Diana Oh Passes Away Suddenly". Playbill. Retrieved July 3, 2025.
  3. ^ "Diana Oh". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved July 6, 2025.
  4. ^ a b Shaw, Helen. "Frankenstein Upstairs". Time Out New York. Archived from the original on 2023-05-24. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
  5. ^ a b Marks, Peter (2015-09-15). "Review of 'Chimerica': A sprawling tale is high on dudgeon, low on insight". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  6. ^ a b "Chimerica, 9/9/15 – 10/18/15". www.studiotheatre.org. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  7. ^ a b Collins-Hughes, Laura (2016-11-21). "Review: 'Among the Dead' Deals in War and Family Mysteries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  8. ^ a b c d Holdren, Sara (2017-10-20). "Diana Oh Is a Fierce Feminist Who Sings in Her Underwear". Vulture. Archived from the original on 2017-10-23. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lee, Jieun (2018). "{My Lingerie Play} by Diana Oh". Theatre Journal. 70 (4): 547–548. doi:10.1353/tj.2018.0105. ISSN 1086-332X.
  10. ^ Oyla, Gabrielle (2014-11-21). "Performance Artist Wears Lingerie Around New York City to Protest Slut-Shaming". PEOPLE.com. Archived from the original on 2017-02-20. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  11. ^ a b Vagianos, Alanna (2014-11-18). "Artist Diana Oh Is Wearing Lingerie In Public To Reclaim Women's Sexuality". HuffPost. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Collins-Hughes, Laura (2017-10-10). "Review: '{my lingerie play},' a Glitter-Dusted, Song-Filled Call for Liberation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  13. ^ a b c Shaw, Helen (October 9, 2017), "{my lingerie play} 2017: The Concert and Call to Arms!!!!!!!!! The Final Installation", Time Out New York
  14. ^ a b c d e Sinclair, Jacquinn (2018-10-09). "Artist Diana Oh Is Holding Space For Queer, Trans People Of Color Through Her A.R.T. Residency". WBUR-FM. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
  15. ^ a b c Villarreal, Daniel. "If you're excited about 'The L Word' reboot, you'll want to binge watch this series while you wait". LGBTQ Nation. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  16. ^ a b "Q U E E R I N G | LGBTQ Web series | S02E01 | "Two Sugars"". YouTube. monokle. Jan 24, 2019.
  17. ^ a b Soloski, Alexis (2019-10-11). "Review: In 'Georgia Mertching Is Dead,' a Road Trip Takes Detours". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
  18. ^ a b Snook, Raven. "A funny, poignant new play about women's friendships". Time Out New York. Archived from the original on 2025-04-26. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
  19. ^ Young, Joshua (September 2019). "In the Spotlight with The Public Theater's Emerging Writer's Group". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2025-07-10.
  20. ^ "My H8 Letter To The Gr8 American Theatre". Ma-Yi Theater Company. Retrieved 2025-07-10.
  21. ^ a b c Clement, Olivia (June 12, 2020). "Ma-Yi to Present Diana Oh's My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre". Playbill.
  22. ^ Clement, Olivia. "Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Donja R. Love, Diana Oh, and More Are 2020 Helen Merrill Award Winners". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2022-11-12. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  23. ^ a b Cullwell-Block, Logan; Hall, Margaret (October 23, 2024), "Photos: Go Inside the Opening of the 3rd Annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival", Playbill, retrieved 2025-07-07
  24. ^ Masserson, Meg. "Ma-Yi Theatre Company Will Develop New Musical By Lloyd Suh and Diana Oh". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2025-06-16. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
  25. ^ Mackey, Joshua S. (May 24, 2023). "When It Comes to Art, Multi-Hyphenate Creative Diana Oh Leans Into the Pleasure of It All". Into. Retrieved July 3, 2025.
  26. ^ Collins-Hughes, Laura (2019-01-10). "It's a Sex-Positive Party, Not a Play". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-07.
  27. ^ "3rd Annual Breaking the Binary Festival Programming Announced". American Theater. 2024-09-30. Retrieved 2025-07-07.

Further reading

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