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National Diversity Forum
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Mission
| History | Current Initiatives | |
by Rick Shiomi
IN
YOUR VIEW AND EXPERIENCE, WITH RESPECT TO DIVERSITY, WHAT CHANGES HAVE HAPPENED
IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS?
In the past five years, I think the
growth and change in the Asian American theater movement has been significant. Between 1980 and 2000, I saw the Asian
American theater movement grow in many ways but it was mostly measured in the
individual success of playwrights like David Hwang and Philip Kan Gotanda or actors like John Lone, B.D. Wong, or Amy
Hill. The theater companies grew, with
new ones like Ma-Yi Theater, Theater Mu, and the
National Asian American Theater Company setting their foundations, but our
companies remained relatively separate entities, all of us knowing each other
but not necessarily working or collaborating together toward a larger national
platform.
In 2003, the Theater Communications Group sponsored
a retreat for Theater Companies of Color at the White Oaks site in
Florida. It was good to share stories
and challenges that we all have experienced and out of those meetings, the
representatives of a number of Asian American companies held a caucus and
decided to work together to organize the first national conference, which was
eventually held in Los Angeles in June 2006 and hosted by East West
Players. It was called NEXT BIG BANG: The
Explosion of Asian American Theatre and it was a huge success, bringing
Asian American theater companies and individual artists together. And in a
planned evolution, there will be the first Asian American theater festival held
in New York City from June 11 to 24, 2007.
These events are the stimuli that can foster our own awareness of the
artists and artistry happening in the Asian American theater movement nationally,
encourage national collaborations based upon that
awareness, and push the national profile of the Asian American theater movement
itself. And a proposal for a future national conference is already being put
forth from theaters in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
So for the first time, on a national scale, Asian American companies are
working together toward a broader goal.
In terms of individual artists, I am seeing another
exciting new wave of playwrights, actors, and directors. Among the leading new playwrights nationally are Julia Cho,
Young Jean Lee, Lloyd Suh, and Michael Golamco, with newcomers like Aurorae
Khoo, Ed Bok Lee, Kenneth
Lin, and Clarence Coo likely to make an impact in the next five years. Locally, in terms of actors in the
Minneapolis/St. Paul area, we have a number of talented artists including Sun Mee Chomet, who made a great
splash with her performance piece at the NEXT
BIG BANG showcase, Sherwin Resurreccion, Sara Ochs, Kurt Kwan, and Mayano
Ochi. Also in the Twin Cities, we have
emerging new directors like Jennifer Weir, Randy Reyes, and Brian Balcom. And from my
encounters at NEXT BIG BANG, I
believe there is a wealth of new, young performers who will be worthy of
national recognition. (For me, people
under forty qualify as young.)
Almost as an encapsulation of this whole
phenomenon, I would mention Paul Juhn, one
of
the leaders of Mr. Miyagi’s Theater Company, which created and performed
the recent hit show, SIDES: The Fear Is
Real… It was self-produced in
New York, then presented by Ma-Yi Theater, then ran Off Broadway, and was most
recently presented by East West Players in Los Angeles. Paul got his start in theater with Theater Mu here in Minnesota and did his M.F.A. at UC-San Diego
before relocating to New York City in the late 1990s. He is a prime example of a national kind of
talent that is a reflection of the new wave of Asian American theater artists;
creative artists/performers with both home-base and crossover appeal.
And again, locally, there is a
growing recognition of the emergence of Asian American theater artists in the
general theater community. Actors like Jeany Park, Sun Mee Chomet, and Randy Reyes are appearing at a range of
companies, from the Guthrie to Mixed Blood to the History Theater to Thirst
Theater. Jennifer Weir and Randy Reyes are getting offers to direct at other
companies and the Guthrie is both in the process of developing a new work by
Naomi Izuka and planning a development program for
writers like Jeany Park, Young Jean Lee, and Kenneth
Lin. This is not to say there are not still many challenges facing Asian
American theater artists here, but the landscape of opportunities has been
changing in the past five years.
So in terms of the national Asian American theater
movement, I think there has been tremendous development that bodes well for the
further growth of our companies, artists, and artistic work.
HAS
YOUR OWN WORK BEEN AFFECTED BY THESE CHANGES?
I think my own work has clearly been
strengthened by the development of Asian American theater artists both locally
and nationally. Locally, I feel I am now
surrounded by a rich wave of talented, creative, and ambitious artists and I
gain tremendous energy and excitement from their ideas and work. With our acting pool so rich, I had a
wonderful experience directing an Asian American version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, using taiko and Korean mask dance as integral elements of the
play. We had actors who could handle the
language, acting and action challenges of my particular vision of the play, and
we received wonderful reviews. On a national scale, we have been looking
closely at scripts from companies like Lodestone Theater in California and are
hoping to produce one in the near future.
Lodestone is a company full of dynamic emerging artists who are pushing
the boundaries of Asian American theater.
As a playwright, I have found my main work has shifted into writing the
books for some new musicals recently produced by our company. Again, this shift has been predicated on the
unexpected reality that we have musical theater artists (composers/lyricists,
and performers) in the area who can make this possible. This is not the type of writing I would ever
have dreamed of doing, but the opportunity has presented itself because of the
talent in our community.
HAS
THE WORK OF OTHERS BEEN AFFECTED BY THESE CHANGES?
Locally, this gathering and development
of talent has fostered the interaction of these young AA artists with the goal
of creating new ensemble-style work together.
At Mu Performing Arts, we are trying to
encourage that through a variety of programs, including a New Performance
Program supported by a Jerome Foundation grant.
And again locally, other companies are both
recognizing the quality of the artists and the work emerging from them. The History Theater is producing a new play, 100 Men’s Wife by Jeany Park, in January 2007. In March 2007, Mu’s play, Circle
Around the Island by Marcus Quiniones,
is being presented by the Guthrie Theater at the Joe Dowling Studio. Also in
March 2007, Mu is co-producing my new play, Journey of the Drum, with SteppingStone Theater For Youth in
St. Paul.
A particularly great example of the
growth of an individual Asian American theater artist would be that of Randy
Reyes. He recently joined Mu Performing Arts as my mentee
through a grant from the Theater Communications Group. In the past five months, he has been one of
the busiest artists in town. He has
acted in several productions (including a hit show at the Fringe Festival, our
own production of a new musical Filipino
Hearts, a series of short pieces at Thirst Theater and the Guthrie’s A Christmas Carol); has run several
workshops for actors; is working as a dramaturge and director in our New
Performance Program; is serving as Mu’s literary
manager for our New Eyes Festival of Staged Readings coming in April 2007; and
directed a play for another small company in January 2007, as well being in
rehearsal as the director of our play at the Guthrie in March 2007! The fact that he can be so deeply involved at
Mu and still be in demand at other companies, big and
small, reflects a huge growth in opportunity that didn’t exist five to
ten years ago.
WHAT
IS YOUR PERCEPTION AND ASSESSMENT OF THE CURRENT CLIMATE IN TERMS OF
OPPORTUNITIES AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ASIAN AMERICAN WORK?
Locally, I would say the whole theater
world is opening up for Asian American artists.
Whether this will continue to grow, and whether our artists can take
advantage of this opportunity is unknown because there are so many factors
involved—from the social/economic/ political climate to whether the best
and most talented of our artists stay in the Twin Cities and establish
longer-standing careers rather than move to New York or Los Angeles. To establish a really significant place for
Asian American theater in the local theater community landscape, we need our
best artists to stay for the next five to ten years and create a recognizable
and respected body of work. If too many
of these young artists leave this community (and that is completely possible),
it would be easy for the general theater community to regress into viewing
successful Asian American theater artists as an anomaly and not a part of a
significant theater movement or perspective.
Nationally, I feel that the more
mainstream companies are looking for the next new talent in playwriting (like
the search for the next August Wilson or David Hwang). The emergence of August Wilson as a giant in
American theater brought with it a tremendous amount of attention, excitement,
and legitimacy to African American theater in general. David Hwang' s
success with M. Butterfly had a
similar impact (though clearly not as considerable) for Asian American
theater. There is always the quandary of
whether it's better to have one star playwright draw attention to a particular
group or just greater recognition of the many other hard working and
accomplished writers, but just as O'Neill and Miller brought some major
significance to American theater, Wilson and Hwang did so for African and Asian
American theater.
With that in mind, I feel as if
mainstream theaters are looking at the newer playwrights like Julia Cho, Young Jean Lee, and Naomi Iizuka as potential major
artists for the next wave of work, which could be seen as different by virtue
of the fact that it is both Asian American and not Asian American. These playwrights have a vision that is more
multiethnic and perhaps a different way of looking at America in the 21st century.
And this follows the work of Diana Son, whose plays Stop Kiss and Satellites
are coming from an Asian American writer and have Asian American characters but
may not necessarily be about Asian American issues. Their plays are full of
characters who now fill the streets, cafes, subways,
and condos of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Their plays may be about a broader range of
issues—personal, social or political—that reflect a mixture of
races and ethnicities. And in that
sense, I congratulate leaders like Oskar Eustis of
The Public Theater in New York City for the role he has played in this
shift. This new reality is already there
on our streets but relatively new to our stages.
Locally again, even though I feel the general
landscape is opening up, I believe there is still a strange kind of resistance
to Asian American theater artists coming from parts of the more mainstream
theater community. This may be because
given the American theater canon, there is still a heavily black-and-white
axis, the Arthur Miller/August Wilson polarity that, though it’s a
tremendous artistic standard (You can substitute Tennessee Williams or Eugene
O’Neill for Miller and Suzan-Lori Parks or Lorraine Hansberry
for Wilson), tends to exclude a place for Asian American artists (so
Latino/Hispanic and Native American artists can fill in for the AA’s
here). From this comes the attitude that if a bigger company produces an African American
play, then all the minorities have been served. In the past fifty years, there has been
tremendous expansion and diversity in terms of African American theater
artists, and rightly so, but the door is only beginning to open for the rest of
us.
In a recent news article, the Guthrie Theater was
taken to task for a lack of diversity in its programming for its two main
stages in its inaugural season in its huge new building. In some ways, looking at that lineup, I felt
somewhat discouraged by the mainline plays selected. However, on its third stage, the Joe Dowling
Studio, the Guthrie has chosen to produce and co-present challenging works from
Mixed Blood, Mu Performing Arts, and others and I can
only hope that success in that area will instigate broader, more diverse
overall programming in the future. In
another way, led by the work of Michael Dixon, the Guthrie is providing support
and access through serving as the site for national conferences and has even
offered to provide the site for a proposed Asian American conference in June
2008. The Guthrie has an opportunity to
become a leading light in the American theater world of the 21st century and I can only hope they will take
advantage of it.
Another local example of expanding boundaries is
the work being done by Penumbra Theatre, which, with its renowned connection to
August Wilson, has traditionally done African American–based work. In the past five years, the artistic
director, Lou Bellamy, has chosen to produce a few plays that have either an
Asian American element or playwright and specific issue. He has recognized the commonality of our
experiences and some of the issues embodied in our encounters and has boldly
entered into that territory. One of
their recent productions was Slippery
When Wet by Suzen Murakoshi,
which was directed by Ching Valdez. And Jack Reuler of
Mixed Blood has long been a standard bearer for multiethnic plays, casting, and
creativity and like Lou, was recently recognized by
the local theater community with an award for lifetime achievement. In many ways, both have played key roles in
the past thirty years in laying the foundations for opening minds and
perspectives for both their peers and their audiences. Now is the time for that sense of diversity
and inclusion to be opened up in terms of overall reality, locally and
nationally.
WHAT
IS THE SITUATION WITHIN YOUR WORKPLACE / INSITUTIONS / STAFFING / CREATIVE TEAM
/ COMPANY WITH RESPECT TO DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION?
We have been fortunate at Mu to have had a diverse staff and creative team. Though we are a company with a specifically Asian
American mission, this mix has enriched our perspectives and
understanding. Our reality is that Asian
Americans represent only about 5% of the total population here and our
audiences are about 75% non-Asian. And
we were told that the typical theater-going audience in terms of the Asian
American community (native English speakers, university graduates, middle
income, over 30 years old, etc) was a tiny fraction of that 5%. So rather than remaining isolated and serving
only our own community, we have chosen to reach out to the broadest spectrum,
seeking to bring audiences of widely divergent perspectives, experiences and
expectations together to share our vision and artistic work.
As with any small company trying to grow
to mid-level size, there are many financial pressures on our staff and company,
but we have been fortunate so far in gaining enough funding from foundations,
corporations, and individual donors to survive and begin to thrive. And one of
the keys to our growth has been our ability to generate 50% of our funding
through earned income (from box office, outreach programs, and educational
classes).
WHAT
ARE THE REMAINING BARRIERS AND WHAT STRATEGIES WOULD YOU RECOMMEND TO HELP BREAK DOWN THESE BARRIERS?
Locally, I think the primary remaining
barriers are still in casting. When I feel it is as likely that I might see an
Asian American actor in a production of Miller or Williams or Wilson, as I
might not, then I will feel our actors are getting a fair shot. This kind of mixed casting (perhaps to be
considered colorblind casting. or multiethnic casting, or whatever) could be
based in a particular interpretation or setting or simply a reflection of
casting the best actor for the role. But
it would signal to our audiences that we as the creators of theater are leading
the way to a more open America, rather than being dragged into the 21st century by demographic realities. This same feeling could apply to Asian
American plays, directors, designers, etc.
Some people say this might dissolve the need for specific ethnically
based companies like Mu Performing Arts. I simply don’t see that because we are
constantly feeding the field and developing new talent that does not get the
same kind of opportunity in more general theater settings. And we provide both
a particular perspective and experience and an artistic sensibility and vision,
that is an art form unto itself.
Nationally, there is a real need to have
greater representation of students of color in the booming M.F.A.
programs. The future is being trained in
our schools now and if we don’t get more students of color into these
programs, our artists will be less well trained and less connected to those who
are moving ahead. At the same time, it is
important to have artists of color teaching in those programs to establish a
broader sensibility in the America theater psyche. I know of a number of Asian American theater
artists who have been through M.F.A. programs and I believe their training has
played a key role in their success to date. But we need three or four times
their numbers in those programs to make and sustain a significant impact.
Nationally, Mu
is involved in an online chat series run by the Kennedy Center with the
sessions led by Michael Kaiser, its president. And once a year they bring
participants out to Washington, D.C. for a conference for performing arts
companies of color. The focus is mostly around organization,
marketing, board, and donor development with the goal of helping them overcome
some of the classic barriers to companies of color. The sessions have been very
helpful to Mu, particularly in the development of
individual donors.
One of our most successful
strategies in working against the remaining barriers has been our use of
co-production collaborations with other companies. Over the past five years we have had at least one collaboration or co-presentation a year. This has allowed new audiences and reviewers
alike to see our work in a different framework, not simply as the marginalized
company whose work they may not know how to assess or respond to. This strategy has also created a real degree
of organizational credibility in the professional way we operate in
collaborations. The collaborations have
helped us break out of the sometimes self-imposed, sometimes socially imposed
isolation and marginalization that happens to ethnically specific
companies. But collaborations mean that
other companies have to be open to working on productions with us and for that
we thank such companies as Park Square Theatre, SteppingStone
Theater For Youth, Stages Theatre Company, and the Guthrie Theater.
A second strategy that has worked
has been to use a wide range of experienced mainstream and Asian American
directors to work with our actors while at the same time giving breakthrough
opportunities to emerging Asian American directors. Having had such directors as Gary Gisselman and Jon Cranney both
establishes a certain degree of recognition and credibility, and spreads the
word that our company has the kind of talent that can attract this level of
director. We have also brought in
directors such as Raul Aranas, a veteran Asian
American theater artist from New York and Cecile Keenan, a longtime director
from Chicago. At the other end of the
spectrum, one of the hottest new directors is our own Jennifer Weir who
directed a successful premiere production of Happy Valley by Aurorae Khoo, which we will remount at the Asian American Theater
Festival in New York City in June 2007.
And we have chosen Randy Reyes to direct our production at the Guthrie,
which we believe will launch his directing career with a big splash. It is a delicate balancing act to bring in
both experienced directors and give the right opportunities to emerging talents,
but we believe the right mix has been extremely valuable to our growth as a
company.
WHAT
KIND OF WORK MOST ENGAGES YOU NOW?
At this point, it is almost impossible
for me to say there is one particular type of work that engages me most. I can list several aspects of theater that
excite me, such as discovering new Asian American plays/playwrights, actors,
and directors; helping to create Mu signature works
that often involve a fusion of Asian and western performance forms; working on
the book and lyrics for new musicals; re-envisioning Shakespeare through the
Asian American lens, and seeing fascinating and memorable ways to create
performance, like the Mabou Mines production of A Doll’s
House, the production of Gatz by Elevator Repair Service, and Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven by Young Jean Lee, which I
consider a remarkable piece of theater (I saw all of them at the new Walker Art
Center).
The issues of inclusion and diversity
have been two of the pillars of my belief framework, which is based in Asian
American theater as a distinct art form both in style and substance (I truly
believe my theater muse is in my Asian American identity and experience,
actually Asian Canadian as I was born and raised in Canada, but the parallels
are so evident that shifting from one side to the other takes little
adjustment). And I expect they will
remain that way in my lifetime (I am now in my late fifties so time is already
running out). I feel that my calling is
to help feed the field, both in terms of discovering and cultivating new work
and artists and having them make a real impact on the cultural landscape of the
world we live in. I will always owe a
great debt to those who helped me in the development of my own career as a
theater artist and I feel I am fulfilling a certain pay-it-forward karma.
I do want to reflect upon a personal and
professional relationship that has changed my life and could serve as a kind of
paradigm for a lot of what I've been talking about. The primary reason I have remained in Minnesota
is because I married a woman living here and she has played a key role in both
the development of Mu and my own personal artistic
journey. She is a professor of theater
at Augsburg College, a small private college in Minneapolis, and she is not
Asian American. But the huge cultural
and artistic encounter that continues within our personal relationship has
deeply influenced much of what I write here.
And the dialectic of our lives and artistry has in turn had a huge
impact on the development of Mu. In fact she was one of the founding members
of Theater Mu and remains a member of our Core
Artistic Group. Martha Bancroft Johnson
is my wife and fellow artist and much of what I have learned about theater and
life has come because of our work together.
My final comment is that I believe we
are entering a period of great fluidity in the theater world, where the field
may finally be tilting toward greater openness in terms of Asian American
theater art and artists. This may be
true and my crystal ball works, or it may not be and I am simply an optimist,
but it seems to me that more and more opportunities are emerging and we should
take advantage of them as much as possible in the broadest contexts. My
particular field of work is in Asian American theater and its impact upon and
place in the general American theater landscape, but the parallels in terms of
challenges to other issues of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, orientation,
accessibility, and usability are clearly there.
We should celebrate our great traditions in Euro-American theater, but we should not ignore the great performance
traditions of the rest of the world and never let ourselves be trapped into
mechanical reproductions of one form or style.
So today is a good day to be a theater artist in America because the
future feels full of new possibilities.
So thank you for taking
the time to read my commentary and if anyone would like to respond or ask
questions of me, please contact me at ricks@muperformingarts.org