AATC presents staged reading of new play

Asian American Theater Company presents the first reading of a new play titled The Clouds, the Ocean and Everything in Between by 18 Mighty Mountain Warrior writer Michael Premsrirat. The reading will be at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, 1840 Sutter Street, March 15, 1998 at 7:00 p.m. This event is open to the public. ADMISSION IS FREE, but a donation of $2-5 is requested.

The Clouds, the Ocean and Everything in Between is a story about life and death, love and loss, history and philosophy, remembering and forgetting. It sucks to be half-Thai and half-Filipino or half-Irish and half-Japanese or half-Vietnamese and half-French (especially if you don't look white!). What do you do when you're caught in between a heritage from which you feel increasingly disconnected and a nation by which you aren't entirely accepted? You buy a six-pack of Guinness, a carton of cigarettes and create your own space in a hostile world.

Mr. Premsrirat is a mean-spirited, vengeful man who often confuses character assassination and vitriol for searing wit. Premsrirat was a modestly successful video artist in Los Angeles before he shot himself in the foot and left Southern California. His video works have appeared in festivals nationwide, including Freewaves from J-Town (Los Angeles), Asian Cinevision's Videoscapes (New York), Visual Communications' Asian Pacific American Film Festival (Los Angeles) and National Asian American Telecommunications Association's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

He moved to San Francisco to play with the progressive/art-pop band The Publick Enema, later Monkeyboy, and follow his dreams of stardom, drugs and groupies. Unfortunately, the band broke up. No stardom. No drugs. No groupies. Currently, he is a writer and performer with The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, an Asian American sketch comedy group. The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors have produced a number of feature presentations in the Bay Area, have toured nationally and were featured artists at the last two Hong Kong Fringe Arts Festivals. He works as Marketing and Community Relations Director for Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco.

Asian American Theater Company was founded in 1973 as a playwrights' workshop sponsored by the American Conservatory Theater. The company is dedicated to the production of New American plays by dramatists of Asian Pacific Islander descent. Throughout its history, AATC has served as a home for numerous Asian Pacific American playwrights, directors, actors and designers, including Frank Chin, Margaret Cho, Dennis Dun, David Henry Hwang, Philip Kan Gotanda, Amy Hill, Momoko Iko, R.A. Shiomi, Wakako Yamauchi and Judi Nihei. Now in its 25th Anniversary Season, AATC is poised to chart new directions for Asian Pacific Islander American theater arts into the new millennium.

For more information, please call 415.440.5545, e-mail aatc@wenet.net or point your browser to http://www.wenet.net/~aatc.

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