Join us for FREE postshow Thursday Talkbacks
October 5
The Use of Asian-American Stereotypes in the Theatre
Can ethnic stereotypes be used as an effective commentary on racism itself? Or does the use of stereotypes for any reason inherently perpetuate them?
Panel features playwright/director Young Jean Lee; Randy Gener (Senior Editor of American Theatre magazine); playwright Qui Nguyen (Co-Artistic director of Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company); playwright Lloyd Suh (Artistic Director of 2G) and Kelly Kuwabara (Program Director at the Asian American Arts Alliance). Moderated by HERE's Executive Director Kristin Marting.
October 12
Theatre Artists of Color
Does society pressure artists of color to work with subject matter reflective of their ethnic identities? How do artists negotiate an audience's expectations?
Panel includes playwright/director Young Jean Lee; playwright Thomas Bradshaw; and choreographer/media artist Dean Moss; with additional panelists TBA. Moderated by SVA new media and history professor Carl Skutsch.
Bios of Panelists:
Randy Gener, a New York City-based writer and critic, was born and raised in Manila. In 1986, the year of the first People's Power Revolution in the Philippines, he immigrated to the United States, following his mother who had already been living in California. Since then, Gener's nonfiction prose, which includes criticism, essays, journalistic pieces and autobiographical writing, have appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, New York, Filipinas Magazine, and Playbill, among other publications. A playwright and director, he is the author of Love Seats for Virginia Woolf, as well as the multimedia piece Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool (HERE Arts Center). As a freelance dramaturg/literary manager, Gener presently works as a dramaturg for the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre in New York, the Roundabout Theatre Company also in New York City, and Denver Center for the Performing Arts. In December, he will be directing Philip Kan Gotanda's Fist of Roses for Pan Asian Repertory Theatre's new-play development series. Gener has contributed essays to several book collections and anthologies, as well as major entries in the forthcoming encyclopedia Cambridge Guide to the American Theater. He is presently the senior editor of American Theatre magazine.
Kelly Kuwabara is Program Director at the Asian American Arts Alliance, a pan-Asian and multi-disciplinary arts service and advocacy org anization, where she previously served as Development Director. Kelly has worked as a consultant for arts and advocacy non-profits throughout New York City , and was the communications manager for Arts Connection, a leading arts-in-education organization. For six years she was a performing member of Soh Daiko, a New York City taiko (Japanese drumming) group. Kelly has an M.A. in English from New York University and a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College.
Young Jean Lee has directed her plays at P.S. 122 (Pullman, WA), Soho Rep (The Appeal), and the Ontological-Hysteric Theater (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals). She has worked with Radiohole (None of It) and performed with the National Theater of the United States of America (What's That On My Head?!?). She is a member of New Dramatists and 13P, a resident artist at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), and has an MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College. Her plays have been published in New Downtown Now (University of Minnesota Press, 2006), an anthology edited by Mac Wellman and herself, and in Three Plays by Young Jean Lee (Samuel French, 2006). She was featured in the Village Voice as one of New York's finest emerging playwrights and in Time Out New York as one of 25 People to Watch in 2005.
Qui Nguyen: As a playwright, Qui's plays include the VCTC productions of Living Dead in Denmark, Stained Glass Ugly; A Beginner's Guide to Deicide; and Vampire Cowboy Trilogy. Other plays include Bike Wreck (Metropolitan Playhouse); Stand-up Absurdity (Wing & Groove Theatre); Slicing Andre (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Pavilions (Ma-Yi Theater); All in the Miming (Vital Theatre; Lady Cavaliers); the short films, Anonymous Korean Assassin and Take Back, directed by John Eung Soo Kim (Asian American International Film Festival); and the Off-Broadway production of Trial By Water: A Gook Story Part One (Ma-Yi Theater/Queens Theatre in the Park) directed by John Gould Rubin at The Culture Project. Qui's scripts have had workshops and staged readings at Mark Taper Forum, The Goodman, Pan Asian Rep, New Dramatists, The New Group, DueEast, and The Immigrant's Theatre Project. Additionally, his plays can be found in PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS 2005 published by NYTheatre.com and SAVAGE STAGE published by Ma-Yi Theater.
Ralph Pena: Plays: Cinema Verite, Flipzoids, Project Balangiga (co-written with Sung Rno ), This End Up: A User's Manual for Lovers of Asians, Dead Man's Socks, and a new play, Nebraska . Recent directing credits include Savage Acts for Ma-Yi Theater, Nicky Paraiso's House/Boy, and Will Sing! for the Philadelphia Shakespeare. He received an Obie Award for his work on The Romance of Magno Rubio. Ralph is a founding member, and the current Artistic Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company. His work has been supported by the NEA, NYSCA, and the Rockefeller Foundation
Lloyd Suh is the author of American Hwangap (NYSCA Individual Artists Grant; Lark BareBones), The Children of Vonderly (NYFA Playwriting Fellowship), The Garden Variety (South Coast Rep commission) and Masha No Home (first produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre; West Coast premiere at East West Players), as well as several short plays. He currently serves as Resident Artist for Second Generation and co-moderator of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and is a former Dramatists Guild Playwriting Fellow, Lark Artistic Fellow, and former member of Youngblood. He was a 2006 recipient of the Lilah Kan Red Socks Award through the National Asian American Theatre Company for artists' commitment to community service.
