Yilong is a recent graduate of The Juilliard School's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. His play The Book of Mountains and Seas received the Lambda Literary Award for Drama, and was produced by Alchemation at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won Second Place in the BBC Popcorn Writing Award. His play Good Enemy had its premiere off-Broadway at Minetta Lane Theatre as part of Audible Theater’s 22/23 season. This summer, Yilong is an artist-in-residence at Sala Beckett in Barcelona with PlayCo, where his play We Borrowed Brokenness was translated and performed in Catalan. ​

Yilong grew up in China and received his MFA from University of Hawai‘i. He is a Core Writer at Playwrights’ Center and has developed work with Ojai Playwrights Conference, EST/Youngblood, Kennedy Center, Space on Ryder Farm, among others. Other awards include Kennedy Center's Paula Vogel Playwriting Award and Paul Stephen Lim Playwriting Award. Currently, he's under commission from Manhattan Theatre Club's Sloan Initiative. His plays include We Borrowed Brokenness (The Juilliard School, Alliance Theatre Kendeda Playwriting Award Finalist, O'Neill Finalist, PlayCo/Sala Beckett), The Book of Mountains and Seas (Lambda Award, Edinburgh Fringe), June is The First Fall (Yangtze Rep, Original Works Publishing), Joker (Po’okela Award, Kumu Kahua Theatre, FringeNYC), Flood in The Valley, a Bilingual Folk Musical (Beijing Tianqiao Theatre Center, Gung Ho Project), PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute (NCTC), and Good Enemy (Audible, Ojai Playwrights Festival). 

When he’s not writing, he’s usually cooking, people watching, or liking cat pics on Instagram. 
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Photo by Jenny Anderson