Week 4 - An authorial visit!

The big news this week is the author, David Henry Hwang, will be coming to Seattle! (Guess that deserves an exclamation or two). 

The Pork Filled Players and Repertory Actors Theatre welcome David Henry Hwang to Seattle for the weekend of August 13. Winner of multiple Obies as well as the Tony for M. Butterfly, Hwang is in Seattle for the Pacific Northwest premiere of his play, Yellow Face (which the Players and ReAct are producing).

Hwang will first attend the 8pm, August 13 performance of Yellow Face, at the Richard Hugo House (1634 11th Ave., Seattle). Yellow Face runs August 5 to September 3, Fridays at 8 pm and Saturdays at 2 pm and 8 pm. Hwang will participate in a talkback session after the play. 

On Sunday, August 14, Hwang will be appearing at Elliot Bay Books (1521 10th Avenue, Seattle) starting at 2 pm, discussing his past works and plays, including his newest, Chinglish, now finishing up its run at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and is now preparing for a run on Broadway.

David Hwang and Seattle actor Jojo Abaoag at the 2008 Asian American Theatre Conference

Much thanks to David for coming out to Seattle, who's had a very busy year, with versions of Yellow Face being produced in Toronto and Chicago, as well as in Seattle, a revised version of his book for the Disney musical version of Tarzan popping into Boston, plus exec producing the indie film White Frog (featuring Joan Chen, B. D. Wong and Harry Shum and written by Stanford grad Ellie Wen). Oh, yeah...and writing a brand new show, Chinglish, which he premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago (great reviews), and which is being prepped for Broadway in between the trips David is making to Seattle, Minneapolis and Ashland, OR.

Wilbur Hall, Stanford

Dave Hwang and I go way back; we were college dorm mates together (I like to joke that I knew him before he had a middle name). We were theme associates together in the Asian American theme dorm at Stanford (And, no, there are no surviving pictures of those days of either me or David...at least not from me)(which is why I NEVER mention anything about incriminating photographs myself....). We did a lot of dorm-type things (part of that was doing the Stanford tradition of putting on dorm dramas---and I had the theatrical acuity of casting Dave as a drama critic). Part of our job as TAs were to design and present programming that fit the theme of Asian American culture. We all pitched in on a variety of programs and events like bringing in outside speakers and movies to show folks in the dorm. One of Dave's projects was to do a play...an original play that he wrote, called F.O.B. It later went on to be accepted at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, it was picked up by Joe Papp at the Public Theatre and it won him his first Obie. And that launched his career as a playwright

  

Philip Kan Gotanda

I worked on the very first production as a lighting designer, and I was  a designer again when David directed the world premiere of Philip Kan Gotanda's Song for a Nisei Fisherman and for the West Coast premiere of his House of Sleeping Beauties. And no lie, those were great times--I remember David and Phil and their band, travelling around the Bay Area, playing their music (many of the songs written by Phil) and raising money for local Asian American community causes. Over the years, I've produced Northwest premieres of a number of his plays, including Bondage and Trying to Find Chinatown, so it was very natural for me to go and produce Yellow Face as a Northwest premiere.

It's just another step in a long association David and I have had (and will continue to have, fates willing)(and I'm just glad David puts up with me and my blathering I've done over the years on this).

What else is happening? Well, we're at the stage where designers are flitting in and out. Tonight, the costume designer came in to take measurements and help fit actors and plumb the depths of their wardrobe (which may or may not be rather shallow)(Of course, I'm not the one to talk about that.....). Nothing from sound or lights (though, I have to admit, the lighting designer is busy).

We'll talk more later.