‘Lee Lue the Musical’ brings a Hmong pilot’s Secret War story to St. Paul

Twin Cities artists of color are leaving everything on the stage this weekend. At the Fitzgerald Theater, a cast of Hmong actors and singers will bring audiences back to 1960s Laos, while three artists get experimental at the Pillsbury House and Theatre for the annual Naked Stages series. At St. Paul’s Amsterdam Bar and Hall, the second annual “Mni Sota Mystery Box” brings Indigenous drag performers, burlesque artists, poets and musicians together on one stage. Flight through Hmong history Austin Ly’s “Lee Lue The Musical” tells the story of a village teacher who became one of the first Hmong pilots recruited to fly combat missions during the Secret War in Laos. The musical follows Lee Lue’s journey through war and the mass exodus that sent thousands of people fleeing across the Mekong River into Thailand before eventually resettling in the United States. The musical began as a high school production at the Hmong American Peace Academy in Wisconsin.

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