Auka Productions Presents

HOT POT

A new play by Hongwei Bao

Four university friends reunite years later, at a hot pot restaurant, after the Covid pandemic.

Over bubbling broth and shared plates, their laughter peels back memories of simpler days, first love and naïve ideals. Conversation soon turns to the quiet divergences that time has carved: careers chosen and abandoned, families expected and resisted, compromises made for security and compromises refused in the name of being true.

Hot Pot is a tender examination of friendship and the small betrayals of adulthood. It traces the heartache of lost love, the friction between dreams and pragmatism, and the work it takes to remain authentic when the world insists otherwise.

Warm, inquisitive and rooted in East Asian perspectives, Hot Pot serves up a single night of conversation that explores gay identity with honesty and nuance, questioning what it means to belong to a place, society, partner, and one’s true self amidst a queer-unfriendly environment.