Selected L.A. Playwrights Spotlight
The Theatre of David Henry Hwang by ISBN: 1408185660Date: 2015Since the premiere of his play FOB in 1979, the Chinese American playwright David Henry Hwang has made a significant impact in the U. S. and beyond. The Theatre of David Henry Hwang provides an in-depth study of his plays and other works in theatre. Utilizing historical and dramaturgical analysis, Esther Kim Lee argues that Hwang has developed a unique style of meta-theatricality and irony in writing plays that are both politically charged and commercially viable.
Understanding David Henry Hwang by ISBN: 9781611172874Date: 2014-01-30Understanding David Henry Hwang is a critical study of Hwang's playwriting process as well as the role of identity in each one of Hwang's major theatrical works. A first-generation Asian American, Hwang intrinsically understands the complications surrounding the competing attractiveness of an American identity with its freedoms in contrast to the importance of a cultural and ethnic identity connected to another society. William C. Boles examines Hwang's plays by exploring the perplexing struggles surrounding Asian and Asian American stereotypes, values, and identity.
M. Butterfly by ISBN: 0822207125Date: 1988-10-01Presents the text of the 1988 Tony Award-winning play in which diplomat Rene Gallimard, a captive of the French government, relives his twenty-year affair with a beautiful, elusive Chinese actress who turned out to be not only a spy, but a man in disguise, and includes comments by the author.
Yellow Face by ISBN: 9780822223016Date: 2009-02-24Inspired by the 1990s Broadway controversy over the “yellow face” casting of Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian pimp in the musical Miss Saigon, Yellow Face spins a comic fantasy in which Asian American playwright DHH pens a play in protest, then unwittingly casts a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play.
- Inspiration from the "Really Real": David Henry Hwang's "Yellow Face" and Documentary Theatre
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Boles, William C
Comparative drama, 2017-07-01, Vol.51 (2), p.216-233
Hwang's decision to adopt a documentary drama format for Yellow Face proved to be fruitful, allowing him to engage with an oft-visited theme in a new, insightful, playful, but also serious manner. In addition, it is worth noting the creative importance this theatrical genre has had for Hwang as a writer because documentary theatre also became the catalyst to jolt awake Hwang's slumbering playwriting career.
Real Women Have Curves and Other Plays by Josefina Lopez by ISBN: 1889379239Date: 2002-08-28Five well known plays by well known playwright and screenwriter Josefina Lopez presented with a detailed introduction from Dr. Jorge A. Huerta. Collection includes "Real Women Have Curves," "Simply Maria," "Confessions of Women from East L.A.," "Food for the Dead," and "Unconquered Spirits."
- Founder of Casa 0101 TheaterCASA 0101 was founded by Josefina Lopez, author of Real Women Have Curves, in 2000 to fulfill her vision of bringing art and live theater programs to the community she grew up in, Boyle Heights. Mainstage productions and art exhibits featuring Angelino artists are presented year-round at CASA 0101 Theater. From its humble beginnings operating out of a converted store front, CASA 0101 has established itself as a leading arts venue for Los Angeles’ East Side, presenting theatrical productions, film festivals, and other special events year round. CASA 0101 also offers year-round, free arts education classes for youth, and low-cost classes for adults.
- "La Llorona on Stage: Re-Visiting Chicana Cultural Paradigms in Josefina López's Unconquered Spirits" By Trevor Boffone
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Latin American theatre review, 2018, Vol.51 (2), p.91-107
This article examines the “bad woman” archetype of La Llorona and how it has been used to destabilize patriarchal discourses in Chicana theatre. By presenting versions of these malas mujeres that are created outside of the male gaze, playwright Josefina López offers complex portrayals of rigid cultural paradigms that limit the possibilities of Chicana womanhood. After a brief overview of the Llorona myth as it pertains to Chicano theater, this article uses Lopez's Unconquered Spirits (1995) to explore how the myth of La Llorona has been performed across time and theater spaces. - "Shadow Men and Real Women: Shifting the Paradigms of the Chicana/o Family in Cherríe Moraga's Shadow of a Man and Josefina López's Real Women Have Curves" By Catherine Leen
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Bulletin of Spanish visual studies, 2021-07-03, Vol.5 (2), p.287-300
The works studied here illuminate the repression of Chicana/o women through their focus on family gender divisions. Hailed by Chicano writers as the bedrock of Chicana/o society and a refuge from the racism of US society, the family is re-imagined in these works and in the film based on López's play.
Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 by ISBN: 9780822218418Date: 2002-01-01Contains the verbatim words of people who experienced the Los Angeles riots, exposing and exploring the devastating human impact of that event. From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, the author has chosen the voices that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil.
Fires in the Mirror by ISBN: 0385470142Date: 1993-09-01Derived from interviews with a wide range of people who experienced or observed New York's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The Mirror is as distinguished a work of commentary on black-white tensions as it is a work of drama. Through her portrayals of more than two dozen Crown eights adversaries, victims, and eyewitnesses, using verbatim excerpts from their observations derived from interviews she conducted, Smith provides a brilliant, Rashoman-like documentary portrait of contemporary ethnic turmoil.
- "Anna Deveare Smith" / by Rita Charleston
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The Philadelphia tribune (1884), 2011-03-25, Vol.127 (37)
Smith is best known today for her "documentary theater" style in such plays as "Fires in the Mirror" and "Twilight: Los Angeles." Featuring Smith as the sole performer of multiple and diverse characters, those two aforementioned shows in particular won her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show two years in a row. - "Performing Personal Narrative: Anna Deveare Smith's "Fires in the Mirror" / by Elizabeth M Myers
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English journal, 1998-02-01, Vol.87 (2), p.52-57
Describes how Anna Deveare Smith's "Fires in the Mirror" can be adapted for the secondary level language arts classroom. Describes a storytelling exercise, and then describes the six stages of the project as students adapted personal narrative for performance: theme; obtaining the interview; the peer-editing workshop; preparing for the performance; final performance; and post-performance activity and conclusion.
The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro by ISBN: 9781350155398Date: 2020-09-03Winner of the London Hellenic Prize 2020The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro gathers together for the first time the three 'Greek' plays of the MacArthur Genius Award-winning Chicanx playwright and performance artist. Based respectively on Sophocles' Electra and Oedipus, and Euripides' Medea, Alfaro's Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, and Mojada transplant ancient themes and problems into the 21st century streets of Los Angeles and New York, in order to give voice to the concerns of the Chicanx and wider Latinx communities.
- "How playwright Luis Alfaro aims to make L.A. the center of the theatrical universe" / by Charles McNulty
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Los Angeles Times (Online), 2021-08-25 - "Think classically, act locally; 'Mojada' playwright Luis Alfaro rethinks 'Medea,' with an L.A. setting" / by Mike Boehm
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The Los Angeles times, 2015-09-06 - "LUIS ALFARO: PLAYWRIGHT, POET, PERFORMER AND MACARTHUR FELLOW" / by Clay Latimer
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The Hispanic outlook in higher education, 2011-10-17, Vol.22 (2), p.32 - "92ND ANNIVERSARY: Luis Alfaro playwright" / by Ramin ZahedVariety, 1997-08-25, Vol.368 (3), p.A19
Fixer Chao by ISBN: 0312420536Date: 2002-04-06Han Ong has written a brilliant exploration of race and class, of character and identity, and of the slippery natures of privilege and expertise. William Paulinha, a Filipino street hustler, is in the early days of self-imposed reform when he meets Shem C. A failed writer now ostracized by his wife and New York City's literati, Shem recruits Paulinha to retaliate against the community that has spurned him. Under Shem's guidance, Paulinha becomes Master Chao, a revered practitioner of Feng Shui - the Chinese art of creating a harmonious environment. As this latter-day confidence man cuts a swath through upper-crust society, his biting observations form a comic picaresque of class resentment and revenge.
The Disinherited by ISBN: 0374280754Date: 2004-09-02Manila, 2000. Forty-four-year-old Roger Caracera returns to his birthplace after nearly three decades in the United States. He has come to bury the corrupt, charismatic head of the family sugar dynasty: his estranged father, Jesus. To Caracera's chagrin and pleasure, he is now viewed by his countrymen as the representative American. And when his father's will is read, Caracera is stunned to discover that he has been left half a million dollars. Unable to live with this burdensome inheritance, he decides to give his money away.
- "Being Contemporary" By Han OngPAJ (Baltimore, Md.), 2012-01-01, Vol.34 (1), p.50-52
Novelist and playwright Ong explains how the concept of the contemporary influences his work. He touches on declining to write an article about 9/11 soon after the event, his interest in reading the works of news magazines but how trends and "trendlets" do not figure in his work, and how a "contemporary thing" lives and dies many times before making its way into his work. - "Cosmopolitanism, Ethnic Belonging and Affective Labor: Han Ong's Fixer Chao and the Disinherited" By Christopher B Patterson
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Working USA, 2012-03, Vol.15 (1), p.87-102
Asian American literature has often depicted the Filipino service laborer as a figure desiring global belonging, forgetting that figure's opposite: the cosmopolitan, Asian American client who desires “ethnic belonging” by consuming Filipino service labor. Drawing on Pheng Cheah's notions of cosmopolitanism, Patterson investigates a dual concept of cosmopolitanism that sees elite migrants as “high cosmopolitans,” and services workers as “low cosmopolitans.” Through two novels by the Filipino migrant writer Han Ong, Patterson compares Ong's “low‐cosmopolitan” service laborers, who are motivated by a desire for high cosmopolitanism, with their “high‐cosmopolitan” clients, who seek an ethnic authenticity that can only be provided through the affective laborer. - "Masks or Faces Re-Visited: A Study of Four Theatrical Works concerning Cultural Identity" By Faye C Fei, William H Sun
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Four works by Asian playwrights are examined in terms of what they reveal about culture, identity, ethnicity, gender, and artistic expression. The works are: 'Face Value' by David Henry Hwang; 'Orientalism' by Edward Said; 'The Legend of Prince Lanling' by Sherwood Xuehua Hu; and 'The L.A. Plays' by Han Ong. 'Fires in the Mirror' by African American performer Anna Deavere Smith is also discussed. The symbolic nature of masks is a recurring theme in most of these works.
- L.A. Writers' WorkshopThe L.A. Writers' Workshop is a dynamic and talented community of playwrights at Center Theatre Group. Since 2005, we have invited seven local playwrights to spend a year researching and writing a new work with the feedback of their fellow writers and artistic staff.
- The Alliance of Los Angeles PlaywrightsThe Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) is a service and support organization dedicated to protecting the rights and addressing the professional needs of the Los Angeles playwriting community. Founded in 1993, ALAP has a large and diverse membership of area playwrights ranging from students and beginning writers to established professionals.
- Playwrights' ArenaPlaywrights’ Arena, under the leadership of artistic director Jon Lawrence Rivera, is dedicated to discovering, nurturing and producing bold new works for the stage written exclusively by Los Angeles playwrights. Playwrights’ Arena develops new materials through several series of readings, workshops and round table discussions.
- The Writers' Room - Geffen PlayhouseA group for Los Angeles-based playwrights, The Writers’ Room is a product of the Geffen’s deep commitment to supporting new plays and specifically to fostering bold, relevant work by the vibrant artistic community of this city. During a one-year residency, playwright members gather monthly to share their work and receive feedback from their peers in a forum facilitated by Rachel Wiegardt-Egel, the Geffen’s Director of New Play Development.
- The IAMA Emerging Playwrights LabThe IAMA Emerging Playwrights Lab is an artistic home for early-career and emerging Los Angeles-based playwrights. Over the course of this one-year residency, the writers will meet on a monthly basis, to share and develop a full-length play in a peer-guided format. Members of the Lab will also be given dramaturgical support from the Artistic and Literary staff at IAMA, as well as a ticket to each of IAMA's mainstage productions.