"The beauty of the plays Cheeky Monkey produces is that they're cross-cultural. We draw expat and Chinese audiences alike. I like to think we're doing our part to enhance communication between China and the West."

"The shows also travel well – hopefully we'll be taking Green Eyes on Chinese overseas soon, possibly to Hawaii. It's about my experience of learning Chinese over the last 10 years; a sort of personal homage to the language and culture of the country I now call home."

Elyse says that the theater scene in Beijing is small and there's a lot of room for improvement in the quality of shows. Plus the money isn't good: "I took drama studies on the side in college, but never really thought of theater as a money-making career. I'm still not sure it is one – like many playwrights and performers, I've been forced into an array of side professions to support my itch to scribble and perform."

Some jobs have been quirky – the kind, she says, you only find yourself doing in China. "At the Olympics in 2008 I was recruited as the spokesmodel for the beach volleyball competition. In one photo shoot, the photographer decided I wasn't tanned enough, so he literally painted me brown. The only problem was that I was in a white Bikini; I was forbidden to sit down or place my arms by my sides the whole day. The photos turned out fine though," she laughs.

Other jobs have been more in line with her interest in inter-cultural communication, perform-ance and language. Currently, she is co-host of a radio show on China Radio International 90.5 FM in Beijing called Laowai Kandian, or International Opinion. "Together with a Russian and Serbian girl and the young Chinese co-host, we discuss international and domestic current events from our own perspectives. One recent discussion was about the opening of a nude beach in Guizhou. As you can image, there were differences of opinion."

Her bilingual hosting skills also have put her in high demand around Beijing and beyond. Multifarious MC gigs this year have included the Bachelor and Bachelorettes Charity Auction at the Beijing Hilton, the popular Beijinger magazine's 9th Reader Restaurant Awards, and a dinner for 80 leading Chinese businesswomen at the Zhou Enlai Peace Institute in Hawaii.

Elyse also somehow finds time to work as international communication advisor to Yan Jiehe, a prominent Chinese businessman whose company, China Pacific Construction Group, builds key infrastructure projects all over China. "A highlight has been interpreting for Bill Clinton, who attended a gala dinner organized by Mr. Yan in Shanghai. I was trying very hard to accurately convey Mr. Yan's respect and esteem... Mr. Clinton was very understanding. The Clinton Foundation is doing very good work in China and I'm excited that my boss might be working with the former U.S. President on some projects," she says.

With so much on her plate, perhaps it's a surprise that, two years ago, Elyse decided to go back to school.

"I got into Peking Opera through a friend, and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. As my 30th birthday approached, I realized that my physical window for learning to perform the opera was narrowing. And so, as many of my foreign friends were heading back home to "do something serious," I enrolled as a student of Perking Opera (performance) at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts."

She's now 32, and in the second year of her three-year course. She says it's incredibly demanding: "Most of my classmates are 17 or 18 years old and have been performing Peking Opera for over a decade. They're just built for it – short and superhumanly flexible. I'm behind, but I'm trying hard and my classmates are encouraging."

"I don't think I'll ever perform Peking Opera professionally," she admits. "For me, it's a passion. There's just so much culture and history wrapped up in Peking Opera. When you know the stories on which operas are based, they take on a whole other dimension. Most people who watch Peking Opera know the plots back to front. They come to see how performers interpret the characters. It's a divergence from Western plays, operas, novels and films – we like to know who killed whom, who loves whom. Chinese audiences know the story; they're more interested in performers' personal interpretations."

Elyse hopes to use her Master's degree from the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts as a conduit to bring her interest in Peking Opera and Western-style theater together. She has already finished translating and editing a Chinese version of Fame, the Musical, which she will submit as her Master's thesis.

"In the Chinese version, the ballet studios of the original are swapped for a Peking Opera rehearsal hall. It's sung in a Broadway style, but with Peking Opera elements mixed in. But where there's hip-hop in the original, there's hip-hop in the Chinese... It's a real fusion of styles."

Elyse is currently negotiating the Chinese rights for the play, and she hopes to put on a run of about 100 shows throughout the country next year. She already has a big-name Chinese producer on board, and will assume directing responsibilities herself. "I'm not known on Broadway, but producers who have brought shows to China know my track record of localizing projects here... It's going to be a blast," she grins.

Also planned for next year is publishing a Chinese-language memoir of her decade in China. The book will be based on anecdotes on life in China from her blog, I Heart Beijing, named after her first play. "One anecdote – a true story – is called 'Why my Chinese boyfriend dumped me for Stinky Tofu.' If you want to find out why, you'll have to buy the book when it comes out," she tells me. I'll have to learn a lot more Chinese first, I inform her.

It's obvious that Elyse has no plans to return to America just yet.

As for family, she says she sees them when she can. It helps that Sinophilia seems to run in her family: "My younger brother has been studying Chinese since high school. Nowadays, he's a Taiji fanatic, and is hoping to start a Master's degree in it this year. He moved to Beijing two years ago and is also in for the long haul."

"It's lamentable that so many people leave China after only a short stay here," Elyse adds. "And it's worse when they claim to be China Hands based on that short stay. I've been here 10 years and I'm still learning new things about the country every day."