Looking for Our Own Stories: Asian American Representation and the Legacy of East West Players and Theater Mu
Author/Creator
Date
2022-04Type of Work
33 pagesText
Program
MA in Arts AdministrationRights
This work may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
Subjects
Asian American theatresAsian American theaters
Asian American
Asian American arts
East West Players
Theater Mu
Asian American representation in the arts
Asian American identity
Arts administration -- Theses.
Abstract
Asian American theatres have been nurturing Asian American artists and telling
Asian American stories since 1965. Theatres such as East West Players in Los
Angeles; Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco; Pan Asian Repertory
Theatre, National Asian American Theatre Company, and Ma-Yi Theater Company in
New York City; Northwest Asian American Theater in Seattle; and Theater Mu3 in
Minneapolis were born out of a need for Asian Americans to be seen as complex
humans, to tell their own stories, and to carve out space in a field that excluded them or
relegated them to minor, often stereotypical, racist roles. As Ralph Peña, the Artistic
Director of Ma-Yi Theater Company states, the work of Asian American theatres is to
“tell Asian stories from Asian artists, with Asian agency and centering Asian lives,
therefore humanizing Asian lives....so when we do that, it’s harder to choke somebody
on the subway until they’re unconscious” (Tran).
This paper focuses on two Asian American theatres that were founded nearly
thirty years apart in vastly different places in the US: East West Players in 1965 and
Theater Mu in 1992. This paper draws attention to theatres that have an extensive
legacy of serving their communities and producing relevant programming, explores
common factors that have led to each theatre’s stability and success, and interprets
history through the lens of arts administration. As Asian American theatres, East West
Players and Theater Mu are critical sites for negotiating identity and the evolving
definition of (what it means to be) “Asian American,” and their longevity has been
powered by the resilience of Asian American artists and a vital commitment to
representing their communities.
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- Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as This work may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.
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