Christina Meiping Chen, 29, has saltwater running through her veins. She grew up moving back and forth between China, Japan and the U.S. with her Chinese father and Italian American mother, and she spent her childhood swimming and scuba diving along the various coastlines.

At 18, Chen moved to the U.S. permanently, to pursue a degree from Northeastern University in Boston, and then to Sarasota initially to complete her graduate program through Florida State's Asolo Conservatory before transitioning into an MA in theater and performance research (she'll graduate from her program in early December). The siren song of the ocean called to her again—this time through an internship with Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS). Combining her love of water and performance research, she was inspired to write a play about the water, which became a musical about Mote Marine’s legendary founder Dr. Eugenie Clark, internationally known as “The Shark Lady.”

A live presentation of Chen's musical The Shark Lady, featuring a nine-person cast, will premiere at Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center on Sunday, Dec. 7. We spoke with Chen about her inspiration for the play, her connection to Clark and what audiences can expect from the show. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What inspired you to intern with Minorities in Shark Sciences?

“My mom loves the water and loves sharks. She has been following MISS on social media since it started in 2020 and told me about their summer internships. In 2024 I did a communications internship with them, and in 2025, an arts and science internship. One of the application questions asked, ‘If you could do an art project that covers marine science, what would it be and why?’ I answered that I would write a play about the water, originally from the point of view of the ocean.

"When I got the internship, I started working on my project with my mentor Jasmine Graham, the president, CEO, and co-founder of MISS. She asked if I knew who Eugenie Clark was, and I didn’t at that time. When I looked her up, I realized she was a pioneer in ichthyology and shark science, and was the world authority on shark behavior when she was alive."

Why did you decide to shift the subject of your play to be about Eugenie Clark?

“I found out that she was half Japanese, which I don’t think many people know. I’m also half Asian and can understand feeling like I’m not Asian enough in some rooms and too Asian in others. 

"[Clark] grew up during World War II during the height of the Japanese internment camps and the after effects of Pearl Harbor, and the prejudice that she faced growing up as a mixed Japanese woman—even though sometimes she would be seen as white in certain spaces—I really connected to and could only imagine what she was going through at that time." [Editor's note: Clark and her immediate family were not placed in an internment camp.] 

How have you translated Clark’s life into this musical?

“Firstly, this play is as much about Eugenie [Clark] as it is a love letter to the ocean. The ocean is the main storyteller of the musical. The ensemble [cast] plays the ocean as a group, telling how Eugenie Clark is their hero—[someone] who showed the world what it's truly like to be underwater and what it's like to be a sea creature.

"It follows along [Clark's] life growing up in New York City during the 1940s, then her journey out west to Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, then to Micronesia, the Palau Islands and Guam. She then comes back to [the U.S.] when she starts the Cape Haze Marine Lab here in South Florida, which eventually turned into Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium.

"Because she had such a rich and full life, full of so many incredible experiences, it's impossible to condense her entire life story to a two-hour musical. So this specific version of the musical focuses on the ages between when she's nine and 33. It’s a story about her journey and overcoming all the obstacles that came her way. The ending is a culmination of all of her accomplishments and shows how she has inspired other women in the field today [and] directly inspired many women succeed in their careers.

"I think [Clark's] work was ultimately all about thinking critically and diving deeper to understand each other; she communicated that ‘each other’ through her shark research. She had this idea that sharks had a reputation for being aggressive and scary and unprovoked attackers, when in reality, millions of sharks are killed each year by human beings. For the last 10 years, the average number of unprovoked shark-related incidents resulting in death has been six or seven people annually."

Did you write this musical with a collaborator?

“Grace Stickert is the composer, and I’m so lucky to have her support in this. She’s one of my closest friends from college, and she's a musical genius. She also knows how my brain works, so we're really good collaborators in that sense. She's also contributed so much to the overall story. 

"I've also been collaborating with Sarah Shin, who's the director of this variation [of the play]. She's helped me shape the project so much, asking me questions, giving me thoughts and ideas. When I started, the script was, like, 200 pages long. Now we've got it down to 104. As the writer, I want to include everything, but [Sarah] helped me focus on what's actually going to work in a 90-minute piece."

What should the audience expect when they attend the debut at Fogartyville?

“It will be a musical presentation, concert-style. Fogartyville has a community feel where you sit at a table and enjoy your drinks with a group of people, unlike a traditional audience.

"The cast will be on stage with music stands, singing the music [along to] a live piano with mics, and we will be acting out the scenes. However, it won't be a production in the sense that there's no fancy set, and there are no props. It will focus on the content of the lyrics, of the scenes, of the music, and how the cast performs all of the audio aspects.

"The whole purpose of this workshop is to both garner interest and to see how it lands with an audience. I always think that the audience is the missing character in a show. Until you present it in front of an audience, you don't know how it's going to actually feel in the space."

What are your hopes for The Shark Lady musical after this debut?

“I would love to eventually take it across the country. If that includes New York City, that's amazing. I think it would be an amazing tribute to be able to perform this show in the city where Eugenie Clark was born and raised.

"I also think this musical could go on tour to schools to educate children about [Clark's] life, and to let them know it is possible to have a career in marine science as a woman.

"Ultimately, I’d like to find an artistic home for it. It’s important to me that that place, or that organization, or group, or sponsor or theater company aligns with the spirit of the story, which is listening to understand, and to treat people with respect."

Christina Meiping Chen's The Shark Lady will premiere at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 7, at Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center at 525 Kumquat Court. For tickets, click here.