The Trouble with My Hair: Coloring, Cutting, and Coming into Who I Am
- LEAF Global Arts19 Eagle St Suite 120, Asheville, NC 28801, USA, Asheville,
Chicago-based professor-turned-storyteller and solo performer Ada Cheng brings her acclaimed one-woman show, The Trouble with My Hair: Coloring, Cutting, and Coming into Who I Am, to Asheville for its festival premiere at the Asheville Fringe Art Festival.
An Asheville premiere, this intimate and transformative solo performance examines gender, sexual, and racial identity through Cheng’s evolving relationship with her hair—and the stylists who helped shape it. With humor, vulnerability, and sharp cultural insight, Cheng reveals how something as seemingly simple as hair can carry the weight of family expectations, norms about gender and sexuality, beauty standards, queerness, and personal agency.
“Hair is never just hair,” says Cheng. “It holds our histories, our rebellions, our identities, our desires to belong, and our declarations of independence. This show is about coming home to oneself and learning to love the person underneath it all.”
A celebration of authenticity and courage, The Trouble with My Hair reminds audiences that the journey toward becoming oneself is layered, textured, and always worth claiming.
Performance Schedule
Saturday, March 21 at 5:00 PM ET
Sunday, March 22 at 4:00 PM ETVenue
LEAF Global ArtsTickets
$16Tickets and festival information: Asheville Fringe Art Festival (https://www.ashevillefringe.org/)
Direct ticket link: https://tickets.ashevillefringe.org/events/the-trouble-with-my-hair-coloring-cutting-and-coming-into-who-i-am/
About Ada Cheng:
Ada Cheng is a former tenured professor who resigned in 2016 to pursue storytelling and performance full time. She is a storyteller, solo performer, and keynote speaker whose work centers on identity, belonging, and the complexities of loving across borders. Through humor and heartfelt narrative, she creates performances that invite audiences to reflect, connect, and embrace their own evolving stories.
Contact info and social media:
Website: www.renegadeadacheng.com
Instagram: @sjadacheng