American Indian Dance Theatre is a professional performing arts company presenting the dances and songs of Native Americans in the United States and the First Nations of Canada.
Esser Leopold "Lee" Breuer was an Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony-nominated American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents.
East West Players is an Asian American theatre organization in Los Angeles, founded in 1965. As the nation's first professional Asian American theatre organization, East West Players continues to produce works and educational programs that give voice to the Asian Pacific American experience today.
Christopher Inadomi Tashima is a Japanese American actor and director. He is co-founder of the entertainment company Cedar Grove Productions and Artistic Director of its Asian American theatre company, Cedar Grove OnStage. Tashima directed, co-wrote, and starred in the 26-minute film Visas and Virtue for which he and producer Chris Donahue won the 1998 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film.
Tim Toyama is a playwright and producer. He is Sansei living in Los Angeles, California. He is co-founder of the Asian American media company Cedar Grove Productions, and its sister Asian American theatre company, Cedar Grove OnStage. He attended California State University, Northridge (CSUN) as an English major.
Cedar Grove Productions is an independent production company based in Los Angeles, California, specializing in media and theatre arts representing the Asian Pacific American community. Media projects are educational, with Visual Communications (VC) serving as a non-profit fiscal sponsor.
Visas and Virtue is a 1997 narrative short film directed by Chris Tashima and starring Chris Tashima, Susan Fukuda, Diana Georger and Lawrence Craig. It was inspired by the true story of Holocaust rescuer Chiune "Sempo" Sugihara, who is known as "The Japanese Schindler". Sugihara issued over 2,000 transit visas to Polish and Lithuanian Jews from his consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, in August 1940, in defiance of his own government (Japan), thereby allowing an estimated 6,000 individuals to escape the impending Holocaust.
Dan Kwong is an American performance artist, writer, teacher and visual artist. He has been presenting his solo performances since 1989, often drawing upon his own life experiences to explore personal, historical, and social issues.
Eduardo Oscar Machado is a Cuban playwright living in the United States. Notable plays by Machado include Broken Eggs, Havana is Waiting and The Cook. Many of his plays are autobiographical or deal with Cuba in some way. Machado teaches playwriting at New York University. He has served as the artistic director of the INTAR Theatre in New York City since 2004. He is openly gay.
Chris Donahue is an American film and television producer. He began his career as a producer in television news and documentaries, then transitioned to narrative film and television at the American Film Institute. Donahue's work has been honored with numerous awards including an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film for producing Visas and Virtue (1998), and an Emmy for his documentary Be Good, Smile Pretty (2003). His love for documentaries has him returning to the form often, and his current interests have him exploring themes in Artificial Intelligence, Creativity, Immersive Storytelling, and Social Impact Entertainment.
Robey Theatre Company is a Los Angeles-based non-profit theatre company.
The Latino Theater Company (LTC) is a theatre producing organization based in Los Angeles, California.
Lisa Loomer is an American playwright and screenwriter who has also worked as an actress and stand-up comic. She is best known for her play The Waiting Room (1994), in which three women from different time periods meet in a modern doctor's waiting room, each suffering from the effects of their various societies' cosmetic body modification practices. She also co-wrote the screenplay for the film Girl, Interrupted. Many of her plays deal with the experiences of Latinas and immigrant characters. Others deal with social and political issues through the lens of contemporary family life. Beyond that, Loomer's play The Waiting Room discusses issues such as body image, breast cancer, and non-Western medicine.
Asian American theatre refers to theatre written, directed or acted by Asian Americans. From initial efforts by four theatre companies in the 1960s, Asian-American theatre has grown to around forty groups today. Early productions often had Asian themes or settings; and "yellowface" was a common medium for displaying the perceived exoticism of the East in American performance. With the growing establishment of second-generation Asian-Americans in the 21st century, it is becoming more common today to see Asian-Americans in roles that defy historical stereotypes in the United States.
Rodney Masao Kageyama was an American stage, film and TV actor. He was a Nisei Japanese American (second-generation) and besides acting in Asian American theater groups, he was also a director and designer. With his roles in the “Gung Ho” film and television series and the “Karate Kid” franchise, he was a trailblazer for Asian Americans in Hollywood.
Be Like Water (2008) is a play written by Dan Kwong, originally produced at East West Players, in association with Cedar Grove OnStage. The play received its world premiere in Los Angeles on September 17, 2008, directed by Chris Tashima, at East West Players' David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center for the Arts in Los Angeles. The story follows a young Asian American girl in 1970s Chicago, who is visited by the Ghost of Bruce Lee.
Boise Contemporary Theater (BCT) is a professional theater company located in Boise, Idaho. Since 1997, BCT has been the only professional theater company in southeastern Idaho committed to performing a complete season of contemporary work.
Evelina Fernández is an American playwright and actress from Los Angeles.
Laurie Woolery is a Latino playwright, director, and educator based in New York City. She is the director of Public Works at The Public Theater and founding member of The Sol Project. In 2014 she was awarded a Fuller Road Artist Residency for Women Directors of Color. She is best known for her 2017 musical adaptation of As You Like It.
Adriana Gaviria is an actor, producer, director, writer, and advocate in the United States. She is a founding member and artistic producer of The Sol Project, a national initiative to support Latinx theater, and the founder and producing artistic director for North Star Projects, an arts initiative that supports independent artists and theaters. Her advocacy also includes leadership roles with the Parent Artist Advocacy League (PAAL).
