Philip Kan Gotanda (born December 17, 1951) is an American playwright and filmmaker and a third generation Japanese American.[1] Much of his work deals with Asian American issues and experiences.[2]
Gotanda wrote the text and directed the production of Maestro Kent Nagano's Manzanar: An American Story,[3] an original symphonic work with narration. His newest work, After the War, premiered at the American Conservatory Theater in March 2007.[4]After the War chronicles San Francisco's Japantown in the late 1940s, when Japanese Americans returning from the internment camps encountered a flourishing African American jazz scene. A Japanese translation of his play, Sisters Matsumoto, opened in Tokyo with the Mingei Theatre Company.[5]
Gotanda is also an independent filmmaker; his works are seen in film festivals around the world. His most recent film, Life Tastes Good, was originally presented at the Sundance Film Festival and can presently be seen on the Independent Film Channel.[6] Along with executive producers Dale Minami and Diane Takei, he is currently developing his newest film, Inscrutable Grin, with their production company, Joe Ozu Films.[citation needed]
Gotanda holds a J.D. degree from Hastings College of the Law, studied pottery in Japan with the late Hiroshi Seto, and resides in Berkeley with his actress-producer wife Diane Takei. His play collections include No More Cherry Blossoms and Fish Soup and Other Plays, published by the University of Washington Press. Other published plays include The Wash, The Dream of Kitamura, Day Standing on its Head, Yohen, and The Wind Calls Mary.[citation needed]
"Jan Ken Po" (collaboration w. David Henry Hwang, Rick Shiomi)
American Tattoo
The Wash
Yankee Dawg You Die
The Dream Of Kitamura
Fish Head Soup
Day Standing on Its Head
Yohen
In the Dominion of Night (full-length spoken word play. Performed with the New Orientals, a retro jazz ensemble,)
The Wind Cries Mary
The Ballad of Yachiyo
Sisters Matsumoto
A Fist of Roses (in collaboration with Campo Santo)
Floating Weeds
Manzanar: An American Story (original symphonic piece with spoken narrative text – librettist)
After the War (revised to After The War Blues in 2014)
Under the Rainbow (evening of two one acts: Natalie Wood Is Dead; White Manifesto or Got Rice?)
#5 The Angry Red Drum
Child is Father to Man (short play presented by Silk Road Rising as part of "The DNA Trail")
Apricots of Andujar (chamber opera – librettist)
The Life and Times of Chang and Eng – The Inescapable Truth of Love That Binds
Love in American Times
Body of Eyes (song cycle – lyricist. Shinji Eshima, composer)
"Night Fishing". Podcast. Collaboration with composer David Coulter.
The Jamaican Wash (Adaptation of The Wash with a Jamaican American family)
#CAMPTULELAKE (short play commissioned by the Goethe-Institut as part of the Plurality of Privacy in Five-Minute Plays project and produced at A.C.T. in 2017)[7]
Rashomon (Adaptation commissioned by Ubuntu Theater Project)
Pool of Unknown Wonders: Undertow of the Soul
Both Eyes Open Opera. Librettist. Composer: Max Giteck Duykers
West of Grove Street. A Play About Old Love. Dying. And The Crossing of Red Lines.
↑ Dunbar, Ann-Marie (Winter 2005). "From Ethic to Mainstream Theater: Negotiating 'Asian American' in the Plays of Philip Kan Gotanda". American Drama. 14: 15–31.
Cho, Nancy (2001) "'Yankee Dawg You Die' by Philip Kan Gotanda" in Wong and Sumida, A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature. New York: Modern Language Association of America. pp.185–92
Dunbar, Ann-Marie (Winter 2005) "From Ethnic to Mainstream Theater: Negotiating 'Asian American' in the Plays of Philip Kan Gotanda" American Drama. 14 (1): 15–31.
Grabes, Herbert (2003) "Die Imaginierung ethnischer Weltsicht im neueren amerikanischen Drama" in Schlote and Zenzinger, New Beginnings in Twentieth-Century Theatre and Drama: Essays in Honour of Armin Geraths. Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher. pp.327–44
Ito, Robert B. (2000) "Philip Kan Gotanda" in Cheung, Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press with UCLA Asian American Studies Center. 402 pp. pp.173–85
Kaplan, Randy Barbara (2002) "Philip Kan Gotanda" in Liu, Asian American Playwrights: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood. 69–88.
Kim, Esther Songie (2000) Asian American Theatre History from the 1960s to 1990s: Actors, Playwrights, Communities, and Producers (Dissertation, Ohio State University) Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences. 61 (8): 2998–99.
Maczynska, Magdalena (2002) "Philip Kan Gotanda" in Wheatley, Twentieth-Century American Dramatists, Fourth Series. Detroit, Michigan: Thomson Gale. pp.116–27
Moy, James S. (March 1990) "David Henry Hwang's 'M. Butterfly' and Philip Kan Gotanda's 'Yankee Dawg You Die': Repositioning Chinese American Marginality on the American Stage" Theatre Journal. 42 (1): 48–56.
Siegel, Nina (February 1996) "Choice and Chance" American Theatre. 13 (2): 26.
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