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Harlem Canary / Tokyo CrowDeveloped by Berkeley Repertory Theatre (the Ground Floor), Montalvo Arts Center, Playwrights Foundation, and Asian Artists Initiative
* Currently Securing Producing Partners * Harlem Canary / Tokyo Crow is a comedic exploration a little-known Japanese propaganda program during WWII, “Negro Propaganda Operations,” in which captured African American Prisoners of War recorded radio plays that contrasted the supposed joys they experienced living in Japan with the horrors of racism in the US. These recordings were intended for broadcast in Black communities in the US, to foment civil unrest. |
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Br'er PeachProduced by AlterTheater and The Parsnip Ship
Audio Production • April 2021 Directed by Desdemona Chiang In this adaptation of the Japanese folk tale, Peach Boy, set in Georgia, the Peach State, Vonda, an elderly African American woman, becomes young when she eats a magic peach. She gives birth to Momotaro, a Japanese boy, who goes off to retrieve the peach after it’s stolen by a raccoon. Vonda remains home, resisting pressure to sell her home so that AmazOni Industries can build a fulfillment center. Listen here! |
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El RíoProduced by Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience and Brava! for Women in the Arts
San Francisco, CA • October 2019 Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe Opening on the banks of the Río Grande, El Río tells the tale of Francisca Warrior, a Black-Seminole veteran who served time in Iraq, and her quest to honor her daughter’s memory while trying to save the life of Rosario, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, who she meets at the border. El Río gives voice to the Río Grande, people living on both sides of its banks, and those souls stuck in between. Cast: 2 W, 1 M, 1 unspecified |
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Men of Rab'inalPresented by La Peña Cultural Center
Berkeley, CA • May 2019 Presented at El Teatro Campesino San Juan Bautista, CA • June 2019 Directed by Lakin Valdez Men of Rab’inal chronicles the mytho-history of two Mayan prince-warriors and their journey towards the embattled kingdom of Rab’inal. Along the way, Princes K’iche Achí and Rab’inal Achí unwittingly travel through centuries, from the Conquest through the 21st Century, encountering historical foes and allies who accompany them on their epic adventure. Cast: 3 M, 1 W (gender-fluid casting welcome) |
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Life is a Dreamby Pedro Calderón de la Barca
In a New Translation by Andrew Saito Produced by The Cutting Ball Theater San Francisco, CA October - November 2015 Directed by Paige Rogers The rightful prince Segismundo has been imprisoned by his father, the king, following a prophecy: Segismundo will bring his country turmoil and his patriarch an untimely death. Yet suddenly the prince is set free. What is a young man to do in the wide world when he’s never known anything but his solitary tower? And is his fleeting freedom a reality – or is it just a dream? Cast: 2 W, 5 M (gender-fluid casting welcome) |
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Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett NightProduced by The Cutting Ball Theater
San Francisco, CA • May 2013 Directed by Rob Melrose A poetic portrayal of the heart of the city in the spirit of Alan Ginsburg’s Howl, William S. Burroughs” novels, and the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks. At the center of this play about love and longing in the neglected neighborhoods of a fictional city is Scarlett, a woman who takes care of her grandmother by pulling wild animals out of her ears and letting them loose in her backyard menagerie. She makes her living as best she can off of the dreams and desires of married men who are willing to sacrifice everything for her. Drumhead, a lonely morgue worker with a wild imagination, comes across a carnival poster boasting of the wonders of Scarlett and can’t get her out of his head. Watch a feature on Krispy Kritters here. Cast: 4 W, 2 M |
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Mount Misery:
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Stegosaurus (or) Three Cheers for Climate ChangeProduced by Faultline Theater
San Francisco, CA • March 2016 Directed by Rem Myers The apocalypse is nigh, but Sach and Claudey have more important things to worry about than face-melting climate change, like having a kick ass yard sale! Stegosaurus (Or) Three Cheers for Climate Change is an absurd exploration of the end of the world, the action of inaction, and the quest to sell road kill taxidermy to buy a jacuzzi. It’s Waiting for Godot meets Beavis and Butthead. See a recording of the production here. Cast: 3 actors, gender unspecified |
OTHER PLAYS
Tootsie Rolls & Candy Corn (or) We Think We're Turning Blackanese
Cast: 6 (3W, 3M)
• Three Black women and three Asian men convene regularly for group outings as part of a Black women-Asian men meetup group. Their planned activities are increasingly disrupted by the escalating climate crisis. Between their group activities, the characters go on individual dates, cycling through one another on a seemingly endless pursuit of love. • Developed with The Civilians.
whisper fish
Cast: 4–7 (3W, 1M, others if desired)
• When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the largely unacknowledged Japanese diaspora of Peru became a pawn on the chessboard of the war. In this epic, massively imaginative story, the sacred and the profane unite two estranged Japanese-Peruvian siblings, a fishmonger and a nun, as they attempt to avoid deportation. Elements of magical realism stitch together the play’s highly theatrical and poetic tapestry of resistance, while Glenn Miller and his all-fish orchestra, praying nuns, and a dancing chorus of masked Devils from Puno are its colorful threads.
• Developed at Cutting Ball, Victory Gardens, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, East West Players, ArtsEmerson, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
La Lechera
Cast: 5 (2W, 2M, 1 flexible)
• Lubia, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, works for the Gallagher family, who live in a high-rise penthouse overlooking Central Park. Lubia is maid, cook, and wetnurse for the Gallaghers' son who, at seventeen, still nurses. To prove his manhood, he bottles and sells Lubia's breast milk, pocketing all the profits that literally flow from Lubia's body.
• Developed at Playwrights Foundation and Crowded Fire.
Boot-Heel
Cast: 9 (6W, 3M)
• The southeastern panhandle of Missouri, aka the Bootheel. In early January 1939, over 1,000 Black and White sharecroppers camped out alongside Highway 55 to protest their eviction from the farms where they worked and lived. In late December 1938, a group of Tsalagi (Cherokee) being forced to Oklahoma from Georgia on the Trail of Tears, passed through this same site. In 'Bootheel,' Afro-Cherokee sharecropper and reluctant protestor Earl Jean Wilderness travels back in time one century, learning about her heritage, the history of the land, and how to walk through pain by standing with others.
• Developed at ArtsEmerson.
Beauty Secrets
Cast: 3 (2W, 1M)
• Medusa is Kim Kardashian to Athena's Paris Hilton. After Athena accuses Medusa of seducing her uncle, Don, who in reality raped her, she disfigures Medusa's face with a pot of scalding coffee. Medusa becomes a recluse, until she meets the macho Percy, who hides his drone-operating-induced PTSD beneath a fake pair of Air Force pilot's wings.
• Developed at Cutting Ball and SF Olympians Festival.
Sam the Ham
Cast: 7 (2W, 5M)
• After his father's fatal heart attack, chubby Sam Hamamoto, mid-40s, who works at a Foster's Freeze and has always lived with his parents, decides to finally go on his first date with Deborah, his schoolyard bully turned mail deliverer. His efforts are threatened by the ghost of his sports-obsessed, patriotic father, his manipulative mother, and his lack of belief in himself.
• Developed at Asian American Theater Company and Mu Performing Arts.
The Patron Saint of Monsters
Cast: 6 (3 W, 3M)
• Medieval princess Wilgefortis, a closet Catholic, has her prays for protection against marrying the pagan King of Sicily answered when she grows a beard overnight. Enraged, the King of Sicily storms out, declaring war, and her father consequently orders her crucified. Thus displayed before the world, Wilgefortis becomes a symbol of hope for abused wives, wandering minstrels, and, above all, ‘monsters,’ who carry her icon and spread her message of acceptance around Europe. Note: This play was previously titled 'The Patron Saint of Monsters.'
• Developed at the Playwrights Center (Minneapolis)
Cast: 6 (3W, 3M)
• Three Black women and three Asian men convene regularly for group outings as part of a Black women-Asian men meetup group. Their planned activities are increasingly disrupted by the escalating climate crisis. Between their group activities, the characters go on individual dates, cycling through one another on a seemingly endless pursuit of love. • Developed with The Civilians.
whisper fish
Cast: 4–7 (3W, 1M, others if desired)
• When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the largely unacknowledged Japanese diaspora of Peru became a pawn on the chessboard of the war. In this epic, massively imaginative story, the sacred and the profane unite two estranged Japanese-Peruvian siblings, a fishmonger and a nun, as they attempt to avoid deportation. Elements of magical realism stitch together the play’s highly theatrical and poetic tapestry of resistance, while Glenn Miller and his all-fish orchestra, praying nuns, and a dancing chorus of masked Devils from Puno are its colorful threads.
• Developed at Cutting Ball, Victory Gardens, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, East West Players, ArtsEmerson, and Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
La Lechera
Cast: 5 (2W, 2M, 1 flexible)
• Lubia, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, works for the Gallagher family, who live in a high-rise penthouse overlooking Central Park. Lubia is maid, cook, and wetnurse for the Gallaghers' son who, at seventeen, still nurses. To prove his manhood, he bottles and sells Lubia's breast milk, pocketing all the profits that literally flow from Lubia's body.
• Developed at Playwrights Foundation and Crowded Fire.
Boot-Heel
Cast: 9 (6W, 3M)
• The southeastern panhandle of Missouri, aka the Bootheel. In early January 1939, over 1,000 Black and White sharecroppers camped out alongside Highway 55 to protest their eviction from the farms where they worked and lived. In late December 1938, a group of Tsalagi (Cherokee) being forced to Oklahoma from Georgia on the Trail of Tears, passed through this same site. In 'Bootheel,' Afro-Cherokee sharecropper and reluctant protestor Earl Jean Wilderness travels back in time one century, learning about her heritage, the history of the land, and how to walk through pain by standing with others.
• Developed at ArtsEmerson.
Beauty Secrets
Cast: 3 (2W, 1M)
• Medusa is Kim Kardashian to Athena's Paris Hilton. After Athena accuses Medusa of seducing her uncle, Don, who in reality raped her, she disfigures Medusa's face with a pot of scalding coffee. Medusa becomes a recluse, until she meets the macho Percy, who hides his drone-operating-induced PTSD beneath a fake pair of Air Force pilot's wings.
• Developed at Cutting Ball and SF Olympians Festival.
Sam the Ham
Cast: 7 (2W, 5M)
• After his father's fatal heart attack, chubby Sam Hamamoto, mid-40s, who works at a Foster's Freeze and has always lived with his parents, decides to finally go on his first date with Deborah, his schoolyard bully turned mail deliverer. His efforts are threatened by the ghost of his sports-obsessed, patriotic father, his manipulative mother, and his lack of belief in himself.
• Developed at Asian American Theater Company and Mu Performing Arts.
The Patron Saint of Monsters
Cast: 6 (3 W, 3M)
• Medieval princess Wilgefortis, a closet Catholic, has her prays for protection against marrying the pagan King of Sicily answered when she grows a beard overnight. Enraged, the King of Sicily storms out, declaring war, and her father consequently orders her crucified. Thus displayed before the world, Wilgefortis becomes a symbol of hope for abused wives, wandering minstrels, and, above all, ‘monsters,’ who carry her icon and spread her message of acceptance around Europe. Note: This play was previously titled 'The Patron Saint of Monsters.'
• Developed at the Playwrights Center (Minneapolis)