History for

• East West Players
• PanAsian Repertory Theatre
• Northwest Asian American Theatre

Sabol, Helen

• Just Say that You Love Me (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)

Safdie, Oren

• Private Jokes, Public Places (SDAART, 2005)
  A young Korean-American student presents her thesis for a public swimming pool to an all-male jury of famous architects.  This comic play asks compelling questions about the state of the male-female power struggle, fears of disrupting the status quo and ultimately the importance of challenging tradition.

Saito, Dawn

• Dream Catcher (NY Shakespeare Festival, 1993)

Sakamoto, Ed
Edward Sakamoto is the much-celebrated author of plays depicting Asian-Hawaiian experience. His vantage point is often the view from the islands. The characters in Sakamoto’s plays face double relocation, first to Hawai‘i, then to the mainland. Whether imagined or real, moving to the mainland makes Sakamoto’s characters confront haole (white) culture and the familial and community impact of abandoning their unique form of Pidgin English. Leaving is the thematic crisis that creates the fault line in Sakamoto’s characters’ lives.

• In the Alley (University of Hawaii, 1961)
  A look at the disaffected local youth of early statehood days in Hawai'i.
• Yellow is My Favorite Color (East West, 1972)
  A story about ''the comic and sexual misadventures of a third-generation Japanese-American." In a series of surrealistic vignettes, the play spans the life of a Japanese-American growing up in a WASP society, focusing on his amorous misadventures.
• Stew Rice ()
  Three friends in 1950s Hawaii vow eternal friendship on the eve of Hawaii statehood. Twenty years later, they come back for their 20th high school reunion...
• Manoa Valley (Tenney Theatre, 1993)
  Manoa Valley, second of Ed Sakamoto's Hawaii No Ka Oi trilogy which follows a Japanese Hawaiian family over a sixty-year period. In the summer of 1959, Elvis is king and optimism abounds as the Kamiya clan is assembling for a celebration of Hawaiian statehood. The two brothers Kamiya, first introduced as young men in The Taste of Kona Coffee, now have come into their own and raised their own respective families. Rascal Aki has a successful nursery business, but he and wife Tomi must cope with changes in family structure as their only son Nobu has married a haole (Caucasian) from the mainland. World War II was still vivid in the minds of Americans and such marriages were rare, unthinkable and in some states illegal. Younger brother Tosh has become a prosperous building contractor and has moved from Honolulu to the beautiful Manoa Valley. Tosh expects his son Spencer to take over the business. But Spencer has dreams of his own, big dreams that will take him to the mainland to build airplanes and rockets, and he must find the courage to tell his father. His sister Laura has married Toku, a good but unambitious man. If it were up to her, Toku would take over the family business, but if it were up to Toku, he'd be out fishing every day. Meanwhile, Laura and Toku have a secret of their own.
• The Taste of Kona Coffee (Tenney Theatre, 1993)
  The first of the Hawaii No Ka Oi trilogy: his play by Hawaii-born Edward Sakamoto revolves around two American-born sons of Japanese immigrants fighting to free themselves from poverty. It captures the pidgin English spoken on the Hawaiian Islands and lovingly depicts the Japanese-American experience there, life on a Kona coffee plantation, and the struggle to preserve of a way of life in the face of Western society's expectations.
• The Life of the Land (Pan Asian, 1987)
  Part Three of the Hawaii No Ka Oi trilogy. Reunion and reconciliation are the themes as Sakamoto continues the exploration of how families keep their ethnic and cultural identity even though members move away from one another in many ways. The ambitious young man who left home for the mainland to seek a career at the end of 'Manoa Valley' returns to Hawaii, and the Kamiya family gathers on a beach to celebrate the visit. His decision to stay at home and give up his career in California leads to shared memories of hopes and failures and makes them realize that, while they are all 20 years older, none are much wiser than before.
• Aloha Las Vegas (Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, 1998)
  Inspired by the rising phenomenon of migration from Hawai'i to Las Vegas, Aloha Las Vegas tells the story of widower Wally Fukada, a 65 year old retired baker, as he considers the drastic move from serene island living to the hustle and bustle of "sin city". Wally's family and friends are thrown into a tizzy of conflicting advice and emotions.
• Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire ()
  A dramatization of the all Nisei 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.
• Dead of Night (Kumu Kahua, 2000)
  A little darker play, almost like a film noir, with the issue of unionization back in the 1950s set against a story of male bonding.
• Obake (Kumu Kahua, 2003)
  Sakamoto, whose comedies and dramas have been regularly produced by Kumu Kahua, turns his talents to a traditional Japanese ghost story set in plantation-day Hawai'i—a chilling tale of violence, betrayal and supernatural retribution. Tamotsu, who has been fired from his job on the plantation, ridicules his picture-bride wife Kazue and friend Hitoshi for their superstitious belief in obake. But he will soon become a believer. Drinking, gambling, whoring, stealing and abusing Kazue, Tamotsu sinks quickly into the depths of depravity. Always looking for the easy way out of this troubles, he eventually goes too far. An unseen black cat, which has been mysteriously appearing throughout the play to thwart Tamotsu's nefarious schemes, figures prominently in his frightening fate.
• Maholo Las Vegas (Kumu Kahua, 2006)
  A sequel to his Aloha Las Vegas, Edward Sakamoto’s Mahalo Las Vegas follows the same cast of characters after the big move to Las Vegas.  Wally Fukuda has left Hawai‘i and is living happily ever after in Vegas – until circumstances shift and new variables are introduced.  Wally's son and daughter-in-law have moved out of his home, replaced by California Harry, a luckless gambler who is hiding out from his creditors.  Wally's daughter and her husband visit from Hawai‘i, bringing some surprises.  And a reluctant Wally and Harry are pursued by two tenacious women, one the widow of a mob boss.

Sakata, Jeanne

• Dawn's Light: The Journey of Gordon Hirabayashi (Boston Court, 2006)
  is the story of University of Washington student, Gordon Hirabayashi who, during the Japanese Internment of WWII, refused to follow evacuation orders as an exercise of his civil rights. Convicted and placed into a federal prison, it took 45 years for his conviction to be overturned.

Salazar, Adrien

• Train Song (Bindlestiff, 2006)

Sam, Canyon

• Capacity to Enter (AATC, 1997)
  Capacity to Enter, a solo performance written and performed by native San Franciscan Canyon Sam explores, through a series of finely drawn character monologues, the collision of spirituality, sexuality, and politics
  

Sanbo, Amy

• Lady is Dying with Lonny Kaneko (NWAAT, 1980)
• Benny Hanna (NWAAT, 1984)

Saraf, Sujit
Sujit Saraf is a novelist, playwright and filmmaker who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is the Artistic Director of NAATAK, a theatre and film group in the Bay Area. He regularly writes and directs plays for NAATAK. His latest novel The Peacock Throne was published by Sceptre in February 2007.

• Everyone Loves a Good Tsunami ()
  Set in San Francisco Bay Area, this satire explores human nature in the face of adversity. Sunil Ahuja and Naresh Panjwani find themselves on the two sides of a political divide, just as a tsunami devastates many countries in the Indian Ocean region. Instead of coming to the rescue of survivors, these community leaders discover an opportunity to prove their own importance and assert their higher standing in the social hierarchy.
  
  

Shanahan, Elizabeth

• A Senseless Overture (SALAAM, 2003)
  An interpretation of al-Ghazali's Parable Of The Pen. Victor and Isabelle cannot escape the loyal love of friendship that bridges their hearts to true love. Divine love maintains human love. al-Ghazali was a great Sufi mystic. Much of his preoccupation consisted of Sufi practices. The certainty of revelatory truth, for which he sought, cannot be obtained by reason.

Sharif, Bina

• My Ancestor's House (Theater for the New City, 1992)
• Sleeping with Horses ()
• Fire ()
• Stars of War ()

Sheehan, Teru

• hex(2) (EWP, 2000)
  When you think about it, the internment could drive anybody crazy.

Shenoy, Nandita
Nandita Shenoy is also an actor and a director. She was last seen at S3M as part of the cast of Anjalee Deshpande's Tamasha and returns to SALAAM fresh from the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. BA, Yale University.

• Marrying Nandini (SALAAM, 2007)
  What happens when parents take their daughter's marriage into their own hands. Nandini's parents find out when they decide to fill out her Match.com profile and learn more than they bargained for about their daughter and themselves.

Shikina, Alice

• Ghosts of Himeyuri (AATC, 2004)
  The backdrop is World War II Okinawa when three sisters are forced to leave home to become nurses for the soldiers in caves. They deal with the emotional repurcussions of having to move away from home at a young age and then be subjected to the presence of older guys. These very innocent girls move into the situation with varying attitudes, but the final result is that wartime ravages their young souls and what it does not destroy, it damages beyond repair.
• Okinawa 1945 (Three Wise Monkeys, 2006)
  In the final days of World War II, the peace of the Miyamoto household is shattered when their three teenage daughters are ordered by the Japanese government to tend to the wounded in caves on the island of Okinawa. With American forces invading the island and the Japanese confronting the enemy for the very first time on home soil, the girls witness the violence and brutality of war, transforming their innocent lives forever.

Shin, Rob

• The Art of Waiting (Round House Theatre, 1993)
  "Waiting" takes place in the mind of a Korean-American named Rob, 10 minutes before he goes on stage to deliver a comedy routine. His monologue travels through stages of his life, connecting memories from his younger self, Bobby with those from his roles as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant and a stand-up comedian. At one moment, he clutches a teddy bear; at another, he scurries from table to table at the restaurant. Throughout the play, he is perpetually waiting -- whether hastily waiting on tables or nervously waiting to deliver jokes. Ultimately, he must weigh these memories together to make a crucial final decision.

Shiomi, Ric
Rick Shiomi is artistic director and founding member of Theatre Mu. Shiomi was born in Toronto but used his experiences as a Japanese Canadian living on Vancouver's Cordova Street to create a Sam Spade-styled detective named Sam Shikaze as the protagonist for his first play, Yellow Fever.

• Yellow Fever (1982)
  The original, starring Nisei private eye Sam Shikazi, defending Vancouver BC's J-Town agains white supremacists infiltrating the local government (this was "obvious" parody when first written).
• Once is Not Enough (1984)
  The sequel to Yellow Fever.
• Rosie's Cafe (1990)
  A prequel to Yellow Fever.
• The Walleye Kid (Theatre Mu, 1998)
  The Walleye Kid is a fable combining Asian tales, midwest traditions and stories of Korean adoptees.
• Tales of the Starfruit Tree (Theatre Mu, 1999)
• The Tale of the Dancing Crane (Theater Mu, 1999)
  Tale of the Dancing Crane is an adaptation of an Asian folktale: a story of a man who accidentally shoots a crane and is later visited by a beautiful young lady who is really the bird in disguise.
• Tiger Tales (with Cha Yang, Theater Mu, 2000)
• Song of the Pipa (Theater Mu, 2000)
  Inspired by the life of Bai Juyi, a Tang era Chinese poet, and his narrative poem, Song of the Pipa.
• Filipino Hearts (Mu Performing Arts, 2006)
  This original musical blends Filipino folktales, music, dance and movement with a modern story in signature Mu style. When Benny, a poor aspiring theater artist, is sent to the Philippines for a family gathering, his simple vacation becomes an entangled adventure of arranged marriages, unexpected romance, and obstacles of antagonism from the local people. Pre-conceived notions shattered, Benny's self-understanding unfolds in relation to the land, the people, and the stories of his heritage.  

Shireen, Deen

• Where Children Play: The Story Of Tank & Horse (Berkshire Fringe, 2007)
  In this dark fairy-tale, dragons are disguised as people you love, the queen keeps trying to lock you in the tower, sex is something to sing about, and though you want desprately to save the princess, you're not the guy she's looking for. You're not a guy at all.
  

Shirota, John

• Leilani's Hibiscus (East West, 1999)
  a humor-filled journey about an interracial romance against the backdrop of Hawaii, which is suddenly shattered by the war that forever alters the lives of the lovers. But with magical intervention from the spirit world, the couple meets again in the most unlikely of places in another journey to the land of Aloha filled with Hawaiian, Japanese and Okinawan songs and dances.
• Pineapple White ()
• Hawaii No Ka Oi ()
• I Hear You!;
• Maui, Dec. 7, 1941
• Honor
• Duty
• Countr
• Ripples in the Pond
• You’re on the Tee
• The Last Retreat
• Lucky Come Hawaii (Pan Asian)
  Lucky Come Hawaii revolves around Kama Gusada, an Okinawan pig farmer who has just made an honorable match for his daughter Kimiko, who wants no part of it. If Kimiko breaks the match, then Kama will never be able to hold his head up at the Maui Okinawan Association meetings. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Kama is asked to prove his loyalty to Japan by "spying" on the American soldiers. Written largely in Hawaiian "pidgin," Lucky Come Hawaii is reminiscent of the Hollywood comedies of the 1940s.
• Voices from Okinawa
  Kama Hutchins, an American graduate student of one quarter Okinawan descent, teaches English in Okinawa, and receives an unexpected education in Okinawan-American relations.

Shitamoto, Elbert Manabu

• The Leaves Have Lost Their Trees (EWP, 2005)
  Armed only with a magic camera, two English teachers, Bert and Murf, spend their winter break hitchhiking through Kyushu, Japan. Join the Japanese American and Irish Canadian as they stick out their thumbs, pull out umeboshi plums, and rattle like pachinko balls through the land of indoor beaches, overly helpful strangers, and a mushroom clouded cathedral.

Sidhwa, Bapsi
BIO: Bapsi Sidhwa, distinguished international writer has published four novels: An American Brat, Cracking India, The Bride and The Crow Eaters, and has been translated into several European and Asian languages. Among her many honors Sidhwa received the Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harvard, the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest national honor in the arts, and the LiBeraturepreis in Germany. Cracking India was made into the film Earth by Canadian director Deepa Mehta. For photographs, detailed bio and other information go to website: http://hometown.aol.com/BSIDHWA

• Feroza Among the Ferangees (Leicester Haymarket, 2003)
  Caught in a clash of cultures, Feroza is forced to choose between love for her Jewish-American boyfriend and loyalty to her family and Zoroastrian faith.

Sie, James

• Digging Down on China (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)
• Talking With My Hands (East West: Word Up!, 1999)
  Playwright/actor James Sie offers his bittersweet tale of growing up in a Chinese-Italian household. With humor and poignancy, Talking With My Hands explores his early life in New Jersey, his career as an actor in Chicago, and the moving stories of his grandparents from two different continents. Sie takes the audience along on a journey in which he searches for racial identity and the perfect zuppa di polla, or chicken soup.

Simpson, Christine

• Arsat (Flud Motion, 2003)
  Adapted from Joseph Conrad's short story "The Lagoon", weaves the art of storytelling, traditional Malaysian dance, and modified Asian drumming into a theatrical presentation about two men whose relationship is at an impasse - their future's uncertain until they can resolve their pasts.
• The Great Conjurer (Fluid Motion, 2006)
  Drawn loosely from Franz Kafka's art and life, The Great Conjurer depicts the struggle of "K," a character forced to choose between the life that his parents wanted him to live—career, marriage, security—and the art that wanted to have life.
• Take On Me (adoption, addiction, and a-ha) (NY Fringe Theatre Festival, 2006)
  Korean-adoptee Christine S. traces the 20 years-and-counting career of one of pop music's unacknowledged geniuses. Along the way, she tries to come to grips with her adoption, her mother, and her obsession with the Roland SH 101 key-tar.

SLANT

• Big Dicks, Asian Men (La Mama, 1996)
• The Second Coming (La Mama, 1997)
• Squeal Like a Pig, an Intergalactic PopOperetta (La Mama, 1998)
• Hotel California (1998)
• wetSpot (1999)
• High (2000)
• WAZU (2002)
• ArchipelaGo! (2004)

Sloniker, Richard

• Cracks in the Ceiling
  A man slips into Germany in the 1930s to conceal self-inflicted wounds, oblivious to the looming political storm enveloping Europe. He discovers that even a fraction of a second is all that is needed to decide whether to really live.
• Blurred Intent (NWAAT, 2004)
  The actions of the play take place in the living room of Brandon's Seattle apartment after Brandon returns home from Chinatown after a fight. As Brandon reluctantly describes the scene to David, we come to realize that his mixed ethnicity has played a vital role in the fight and his resulting actions. David's response is invoked from his perception of Brandon; as a friend, as someone who's seeing his ex-girlfriend, and his belief that Brandon could never completely understand what it means to be "fully" Asian American.

Snee, Dennis

• Alice in America-Land (InterACT, 2004)
  In this fresh and lively update of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice takes a journey through the picture tube of her family’s television, and meets a mad collection of characters — with a certain difference! A White Rabbit — who lives in fear of someone’s dropping “the big one.” A Mock Turtle — who’s a champion of consumer rights. A Dodo who’s a guitarist, a Dormouse seeking political office and an Eagle who lives in the past. The Duke and Duchess have switched life roles — she’s a “working duchess” while he’s a “house duke.” Alice herself becomes the unwitting subject for a showbiz roast with two aging, bitter comedians — the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. Through it all, Alice just wants to return home to her beloved cat. Just when it seems as though this mad world of America-land will drive her as mad as the inhabitants, she awakens, safe at home, her cat in her lap. A fanciful, biting, always funny tale of a contemporary Alice that will delight all audiences.

Solano, Paula Weston

• Appearances (Asian Theatre Workshop, 1999)
  Paula Weston Solano's hilarious characters are keeping up, eating away, surgically altering and making appearances throughout different decades of 20th century U.S. From the lyrical to the outrageous, the political to the personal, these Asian women experience what happens when there's too much or just not enough!

Son, Diana
Now, currently a producer for Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

• Stealing Fire (Soho Rep, 1992)
  Two sisters, one bad marriage, a rocky boat ride and secrets weaved into a shawl
• 2000 Miles (Ensemble Studio Theatre, 1993)
  A young woman, Janie, tries to find sure footing on the line separating her past as an irresponsible child and a capable adult after her mother is hit by a stroke.
  
• R.A.W. ('Cause I'm a Woman) (Ohio, 1993)
  four Asian American women respond to the sexual stereotypes of them as geishas, exotic virgins and suicidal Miss Saigon's
• T.W.E.E.D. (New Works, 1993)
• Boy (La Jolla Playhouse, 1996)
  When a couples fourth daughter is born they are determined to make everybody think she is their desperately-desired son, they name her Boy.
• Stop Kiss (Public Theatre, 1998)
  A modern tragicomedy about the ways, both sudden and slow, that lives can change irrevocably. After Callie meets Sara, the two unexpectedly fall in love. Their first kiss provokes a violent attack which transforms their lives in ways they could never anticipate.
• Fishes (New Georges, 1998)
  When her mother becomes the fish she always wanted, Junebug learns that what you dream of is not always what you can live with.
• Happy Birthday Jack (Humana Festival, 1999)
  Audience members enter one of several phone booths, pick up the receiver and listen to a three-minute play unfold in conversation as Brian phones Jack on his 35th birthday.
• Satellites (The Public, 2006)

Soo Hoo, Judy
Judy's plays have been produced twice at East West Players as well as Lodestone SHP's (BEASTLY BEAUTIES). She was a winner in the 1996 East West Players/ AT&T New Voices Playwriting Competition for REFRIGERATORS. She is also a 1999 winner of the Yukon Pacific New Play Award for TEXAS, and is a 2000 PEN West Emerging Voices Fellow. Her work is published in Best Male Stage Monologues; Best Stage Scenes by Smith and Kraus Publishers; and in BOLD WORDS: A Century of Asian American Writing. Judy is the recipient of the 1998 APEX Scholarship, sponsored by East West Players and APEX, and the 1999 UCLA Extension Writer's Program Community Access Scholarship.

• Texas (Lodestone, 1999)
  Texas dates from the late 1990s and views macho brotherhood through the eyes of underpaid immigrant laborers. or newly arrived college boy Steven, brothers Duke and Danny are the host family from hell: messy, macho hayseeds living in a trashy trailer. There’s only one bed, a mattress placed atop the kitchen table. What’s more, the trailer’s anchored in the rural plains of the Lone Star State, miles from anywhere. Steven needs to escape, but there are wild dogs outside, and his hosts are counting on Steven’s housing stipend. Each character also has something to hide, which transforms Texas into a claustrophobic comedy about confinement, coercion and, later, confession
• Delivery (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)
• Refrigerators (AATC, 1999)
  In REFRIGERATORS, Judy Soo Hoo, takes you to the hottest day in December. What can three Asian American women desire the most in such a smoldering day? The perfect refrigerator! This play is a story about food, love, relationships and the messy secrets that lie beyond the butter dish.
• 29 1/2 Dreams: Women Walking Through Walls (EWP, 1993)
  A two act musical with a feminine perspective on relationships, various societal ills and dysfunction.
• Twice Told Christmas Tales (EWP)
• Beastly Beauties (Lodestone)
  Part of American Monsters. In the wild, three women encounter a dead man who comes to life to prey upon their sexual fears until only one survivor is left standing.
• Solve for X (Cleveland Playhouse, 2003)
  Solving for X has never been a problem for Hannah, until she meets Theo and his son Henry. Soon she develops an unnatural, unexpected attraction, and finds herself trying to solve the complicated mysteries of life and love. Developed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, this exciting and intriguing play marks the playwright's debut in Cleveland.
• Peanuts (ART 168 Productions, 2007)
  A one-act. A wickedly fun comedy about the honeymoon stage of marriage. Andy married Jane, the woman of his dreams. But a startling revelation causes him to think that he's made a grave mistake.
• The Red Dress (Lodestone, 2008)
  Rebecca's hopes and dreams lie with a shiny red dress---only if she can renew its ten-year warranty before time runs out. One Act
• At Risk (Watts Village Theater Company, 2008)
  In a fictional middle school in South Los Angeles, every student is at risk, and so is every teacher. Watts Village Theater Company's offering to the festival explores the history of United Teachers of Los Angeles through the eyes of a rookie and the motley band of veterans who get him through his first year.

Song, John
Dreams of My Father's Music was a New Voices Playwriting Competition winner, as well as a winner in the C.Y. Lee Playwriting Contest. He was a 1997 PEN West Fellow.

• Dreams of My Father's Music ()

Sotelo, Beverly

• Come and Go (EWP, 2004)
  Cassie and Rich have been friends for years. He'd do anything for her. Anything.

Stanton, Susan Soon He

• What Ever Happened to John Boy Kihano? (Kumu Kahua, 2009)
  Winner of the 2006 Kumu Kahua Theatre/UHM Theatre Department contest, this Kumu Kahua world premiere deals with the mysterious disappearance of a child and the effects it has on his family. John Kihano, who likes to take his youngest son fishing, returns one day without him, offering only a vague explanation about the child going to stay on the Big Island with "Auntie Maile." The problem is, no one in the family has ever heard of Auntie Maile, whom John claims is a friend of his mother whom he hasn't seen for twenty years. He has no address or phone number for her. What really happened? Did John Boy drown? Was he kidnapped? His father remains silent, only offering assurances that he will return, without specifying when. As the days turn into weeks, the police become involved, the search continues, the mystery deepens, tensions mount, loyalties shift and the family begins to fall apart.
  

Steinberg, Eric

• Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt (East West: Word Up!, 1999)
  Nobody Moves, Nobody Gets Hurt is a study of violence written by Korean-Jewish American Eric Steinberg. The story follows an American Ulysses as he enters adulthood, discovers his tools of expression in violence, and battles demons in the whirlwind of American popular culture. Utilizing text, movement and sound effects, Steinberg examines the cult of violence as it’s glorified and perpetuated by politics, sexuality, sports and entertainment.

Suh, Lloyd
Playwright Lloyd Suh is a second-generation Korean American who was born in southern Indiana and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Winner of both the Dasha Epstein Next Step Fellowship and the Dramatists Guild of America Playwriting Fellowship, his work has been produced and workshopped severally with Second Generation Productions and EST, at venues including the New York Shakespeare Festival/Joseph Papp Public Theater, the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop, Expanded Arts, and the New York International Fringe Festival.

• The Garden Variety ()
• The Children of Vonderly ()
• The Greatest Spectacle in Racing (2nd Generation, 1999)
  Indianapolis. A redneck spectator. A roaming food vendor. Three people who don't belong. Set against the backdrop of the Indy 500, a daughter brings home her African American fiancee seeking her Korean father's blessings.
• With a Hammer and a Nail (EST/Thicker Than Water, 2002)
  A fable that grapples with creation, creativity, bigotry, kinship and love, among other topics. Emma Poff, the puppetmaker who creates and brings to life Annabell. By making her Asian, Emma hopes that Annabell will be rejected for sale and returned to her as her own. Emma's man, Gregory, unaware that Emma and Annabell can speak to each other, orders Emma to do her share to generate income by making a white puppet, who turns out to be Isabell. While Emma's emotions are focused on Annabell, Annabell's yearn toward Isabell.
• He Cry Boy See He Sad (2002)
• Masha No Home (Ensemble Studio Theatre, 2002)
  When her late mother's secret legacy - a huge sum of "community" money - is discovered, 17-year-old Masha does the noble thing--and steals it! A darkly comic play, MASHA NO HOME is about a second generation Korean American and her surprising journey of reconciliation.
• American Hwangap (2g, 2005)
  When Min Suk Chun returns from Korea on his 60th birthday to reclaim the wife and children he abandoned in the U.S. fifteen years earlier, he is forced to take stock of his life, his dreams, and what he left behind.
• Happy Birthday William Abernathy (Thumping Claw, 2008)
  

Sueko, Seema

• Remains (Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company, 2003)
  This play tells the story of Laila Ahmed, an American college student, who turns up dead in Israel/Palestine. Her mother receives her journal through which she pieces together the last four months of her daughter's life and meets good, bad, beautiful, and ugly people on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sun, William and Fei, Faye C.

• Fax Shangri-La (Theatre Mu, 1998)

Sundaralingam, Pireeni

• War Harvest (AATC, 2008)
  One Act.

Sy, Jovanni

• Untitled (fu-GEN, 2005)
  A new play about the intersection of European and Asian cultures as told by a cooking show host.

Takeda, Suz

• Game of Life (AATC, 2000)
  A wacky psychic uses a board game to channel psychic energies to help SUZ examine her personal/cultural identity. SUZ spins the wheel, moves three spaces ahead and enters the "Game of Life". Through vignettes and monologues about: Psychic Hotlines, Japan Pop, Oakland, The Brady Bunch and Soul Train, we all become players in this "Game of Life" that SUZ brings to the stage

Takeshita, Vernon

• Performance Anxiety ()
  "sex, cross-dressing, gays, lesbians, wooden children, identity mix-ups, screwed up people, bisexuality, denial, and the need to be a normal "Beaver Cleaver" household through it all."

Tacuher, Rozanne

• Silent Tigress (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 1999)

Taleon-Sonza, Jorshinelle
MFA from New School University's Actors Studio.

• Migration Blues (New School University, 2002)
• Sandman (Actors Studio Repertory Theatre)
• How to Cook Adobo (Diverse City, 2005), a cultural comedy about being young and Filipino.
• Cold Flesh (Diverse City, 2006)

Tamaribuchi, Peter

• Half Lives (AATC, 2000)
  A new drama/comedy that brings back the excitement in a coming-of-age tale about a typical Asian American teenager who faces all the usual questions: When do you go all the way? How do you keep it from your Dad? What do you do if your boyfriend becomes a racist, sexist !!!*&^5#@!?

Tamayo, Vanessa

• Novenas (East West, 2008)
  The Manong generation is dying, and prayers for the dead seem to line up night after night. Set against the droll rituals of mourning, a daughter returns to care for her dying father in the community that she destroyed.

Tan, Joel (with Ginu Kamani)

• The Cure (AATC, 2003)

Tandoc-Pichereau, Michelle

• The Amulet (EWP, 2002)
  A magical stone. A dying man. And a family who's about to discover that life, indeed, is in the smallest details.

Tang, Lisa

• Dry Hours (EWP, 2006)
  "The threshold has been crossed, ladies." A man mysteriously haunts three friends as they struggle with the choices they need to make today. And the ones made for them in the past.

Tanglao-Aquas, Francis
Francis Tanglao-Aguas is the author of “when the purple settles,” winner of the Palanca Award, the Philippines National Prize in Literature. He also wrote “where the carabao sleeps,” and “Abuja Woman,” both winners of the Audrey Skirball Kenis Playwriting Award. In April 2007, he performed his original solo play, “The Sarimanok Travels” at the University of Hawaii where he was awarded a Freeman Foundation Artist in Residence. His newest work “Ramayana La’ar” won Best Play from the Virginia Gazette for its world premiere production at the College of William and Mary. He is also the co-editor of “Tibuk-Tibok Festival Anthology of Young Filipino Writers.”
Educated at the UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television with a B.A. in Theater Magna Cum Laude, and M.F.A. in Playwriting, Tanglao-Aguas is founding Artistic Director of the Ateneo de Manila Fine Arts Festival and Theater Underground at UCLA. He is the first Asian American appointed to a tenurable Professorship at the College of William and Mary's Theatre Department. He has also taught at the International Islamic University Malaysia, Ateneo de Manila University, Kenyon College, and Georgetown University. He is a member of Asia Pacific Indigenous Plays Festival, Screen Actor's Guild and the Dramatists Guild of America. He continues to perform his solo show, The Sarimanok Travels, all over the world.

• Ramayana La’ar
  Theatrical adaptation of the sacred Indian epic poem by St. Valmiki.
  • World Premiere, William and Mary Theatre, PBK Memorial Hall, The College of William and Mary, Virginia. March 2007.
  • Winner, Best Play of the 2007 Season, Virginia Gazette
  • Winner, Best Director Award of the 2007 Season, The Virginia Gazette
• Abuja Woman
  A multicultural community of PhD holders in LA cope with survival.
  • World Premiere: Kenyon College, Ohio, April 2005
  • Workshop: UCLA New Works Festival, May, 2000
• The Sarimanok Travels (published in Tibuk-Tibok Anthology of Young Filipino Writers, 2003)
  A solo epic in dance, poetry, and song on the mythology of the Philippines.
  • Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, November 19, 2007
  • Philippine Writers Summit, East West Center & University of Hawaii, April 2007
  • Philippine Literature Festival, Consulate of the Republic of the Philippines, April 2007
  • Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, CA February 2006
  • LahiARTS, Secretary of State Auditorium, Sacramento, CA, October, 2005
  • World Premiere: Asia Pacific Indigenous Play Festival, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, September 2003
  • Ateneo de Manila University, September 2001
  • Association of Asian Studies, San Diego, CA, March 2000
  • UCLA Festival, June 1995
• …when the purple settles… (published by Bathala Press, Manila, 2006)
  Hip hop operatic adventure into the aftermath of martial law ruled Philippines.
  • Winner, Palanca Award in Literature (Philippines' Prize in Literature), 2002
  • World Premiere: Tanghalang Ateneo, Rizal Theatre, December 2001
  • English in East Asia Conference, Manila, December 2001
  • Francis Ford Coppola Play Festival, Los Angeles, December 1999
  • Workshop, Sinegang Theater: Los Angeles, January 1999
• …where the carabao sleeps.
  A Filipino USAFFE WWII Veteran with Alzheimer’s quest to return to the United States.
  • Staged Reading: SIPA Filipino Community Center, and Philippine American Library, Los Angeles, CA. Nov, 1999

Thelin, Carl

• Snake Charmer (AATC, 2001)
  Twelve minute play

Thoj, A-yia and Thor, Saychay

• Under the Bridge (Pangea World Theater, 2006)
  Growing up can be hard. It gets even harder when you're a Hmong girl living in an American society. Cultural expectations are automatically placed on you. As Khang, a 16 year-old Hmong girl, evolves into a mature woman, she makes mistakes that change the course of her life.

Thong, Lisa

• All Hail (East West, 2006)
  Andy is a Vietnamese-American taxi driver who is at a steadfast standstill while being a principal mover in the daily lives of strangers. Faced with the frustrations of others towards their cyclical lifestyles, Andy is forced to confront his own humdrum existence.

Tien, Melisa

• The Hiding Place (Aspen Theatre, 2008)
  A menacing, lyric glimpse at power, sexuality and the workplace. (Ten minute play)

Timmons, Anne Miyamoto

• Mango Tree (Pan Asian, 2008)
  Using Hawaiian myth and legend as well as magical flora and fauna, Mango Tree tells the universal tale of love, betrayal and hope in ever changing lives. A benevolent Mango Tree, a nosy Owl and a Moon Goddess help a Chinese Hawaiian child, a changling find the love she seeks.

Tjarks, Mark

• The Ventriloquist (Kumu Kahua Theatre, 2005)
  presents a volatile and highly theatrical cocktail of music, tape-recorded encounters, and tart home-truths from an endearing but ill-adjusted couple.

Tokuda, Marilyn

• The Marginal Man (NWAAT, 1973)

Tokudani, Betty

• The Nisei Widows Club (East West, 2003)
  A new comedy about love and loss and living in the Nisei (second generation Japanese American) tradition. A group of Nisei band together to form a support group for bereaving spouses. One night, unexpected visitors attend their weekly gathering and all hell breaks loose.

Tonouchi, Lee

• Gone Feeshing (Kumu Kahua, 2004)
  "Pidgin Guerilla" Tonouchi, author of the short story collection Da Word, brings his "Mastah-Of-Comic-Disastah" style of literary comedy to the stage with the story of two brothers, Wayne and Grayson, who get together for the first time in several years to go fishing. The lives of Grayson, a schoolteacher, and Wayne, host of a popular fishing-and-cooking television show, have been determined partially by their differing relationships with their late father. When Grayson informs his older brother that he is to be married, the pair embark on a surrealistic journey that takes them through their childhood, teenaged and young adult years and back to the present—helping them to confront their past, deal with their father, and resolve their conflicts to reach a mutual understanding. By having the brothers repeatedly "swept away" by the ocean into turning points of their youth, Tonouchi combines pidgin-based comic dialogue with authentically developed character
• Living Pidgin (Kumu Kahua, 2006)
  Living Pidgin showcases Da Pidgin Guerrilla Lee A. Tonouchi's talents as a comic writer for the stage in this thematic assemblage of short plays and monologues. "How Fo Be Local in 5 Easy Steps" features a flirtatious, egotistical documentary filmmaker whose actors have a reality script of their own. "7 Deadly Local Sins" reveals the humorous character flaws of Hawai`i's Local society, as told by an aloha shirt-wearing, downtown businessman walking down Fort Street Mall. "Significant Moments in da Life of Oriental Faddah and Son" is a comic, yet heartfelt monologue about the strained relationship between a son and his Oriental Faddah. "Dey Say if You Talk Pidgin You No Can" collects advice students have received over the years on how speaking Pidgin will limit them in life. "Hawaiian Hero for Hire" introduces the world to Hawaiian Man and his superhero sidekick Haole Boy, as they struggle to find relevance for Hawaiian culture in today's fast-paced, cash-money world. "Pijin Wawrz" takes place in Future Hawaii, where Pidgin is outlawed and only the Pidgin Rebels can take on the impossible mission of rescuing the rumored lost Pidgin archives.

Toyama, Tim

• Visas and Virtues
  This short one act was the germ for the Oscar winning film on the Japanese Schindler.
• Independence Day (East West, 2001)
  In an internment camp, a young man's independence is gained at great cost.
• Memorial Day (EWP, 2003)
  In World War II, three young Japanese American soldiers discover the meaning of friendship and sacrifice .
• Yuri and Malcom (EWP, 2007)
  A play about the life of noted Nisei civil rights activist and community leader Yuri Kochiyama, and her friendship with Malcolm X.

Tran, Steven

• The Night Rehearsal (East West, 2008)
  Till intends his new play to shake up the establishment. His ingredients: a night rehearsal, a young lady, his midlife woes and the Bogeyman. Will he reach the pinnacle of his art in one night?

Tran, Trieu

• A Parting of Ways/Hanoi or Hollywood/Rollying Thunder (EWP: Paper or Plastic, 2000)

Tsufura, D. A.
Donna Ayako Tsufura is a filmmaker, playwright and inveterate traveler who has gotten lost in over 30 countries around the world. “Death and Peanuts,” her short experimental film about grief and the psyche, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Other shorts include “A Tale From Fort Tryon Park” (broadcast on WNYC-TV) and “The Rose Thief” (in post production). Her play “Origami” was produced by Northwest Asian American Theatre in Seattle. Donna has been a staff member of the Sundance Institute’s Filmmakers Lab, Playwrights Lab and Theater Lab. She is currently developing “MacKenzie’s Cafe,” a dramatic comedy feature about a young Asian American woman who goes after her dreams, and a short, “The Wedding Dance,” the tale of a homophobic father’s acceptance of his son.

• Origami (NWAAT, 1994)
  Origami resonates with the terrible consequences of what happens in a family when truths are deliberately hidden and cover-ups are used to protect the innocent. It centers around Kay Kageyama is a bright, independent and willful 17-year-old in the Chesterfield, Conn. of 1975, who discovers the family secet....

Trinidad, Lorely

• los angelas (EWP, 2000)

Truitt, Sara

• The Seven Days of Miriam (EWP, 2005) (with Arava Talve)
  Miriam is afflicted with leprosy and sent into exile for seven days. A modern retelling of an ancient story of redemption.
• Motherpieces (EWP, 2006)
  Who am I - what is my place in the world - in relation to my mother? Three actors play three generations of mothers and daughters in conflict.
• Hidden Waters, with Arava Talve (EWP, 2007)
  Is remembering freeing or does it have the capacity to destroy lives? This is the issue that confronts both Devorah, who is in jail for killing her daughter's swim coach, and Dr. Jael, a young Iranian court appointed psychiatrist. Hidden Waters was inspired by the biblical story of Devorah the Judge.

Tu, Lia

• The Rusty Nail Competition (East West, 2007)
  A young man bets his friend that he can make anything valuable, even a rusty nail.

Tuan, Alice
Alice Tuan is featured on the cover of the October 2002 issue of American Theater as one of seven playwrights "headed for their break-out season." The magazine featured her again in November 2002, with an essay discussing the state of the arts in the U.S. She was recently awarded the prestigious Colbert Award for Excellence as an emerging theatre artist. Tuan's work has been produced at the Mark Taper Forum, the McCarter Theatre, Berkley Repertory Theatre, and East West Players. Tuan's one-act play Some Asians was a winner at the Perishable Theater Fifth Annual Women's Playwrighting Festival in 1997. She was a 1999 recipient of a NEA/Theatre Communications Group Playwright Residency Grant at East West Players, as well as a resident playwright at Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1999.

• 4 Days in Red Gulch (Mark Taper, 2002)
  About the stretch of time between June 30, 1919, the first day of Prohibition, and Oct. 19, 1929, when the stock market crashed
• Some Asians (1997)
• New Culture for a New Country (East West: Word Up!, 1999)
• Ikebana ()
  Hidden things, secrets and rearranging reality to spare loved ones pain are the themes of this work. Each scene is based on an ikebana flower arrangement: The characters are all flowers of sorts being arranged by God's (or someone else's) hands. Thus, most of the action concerns the "blooming" and "wilting" of family relations and character tensions.
• Last of the Suns (1995)
  Combining American and Chinese storytelling techniques to devise a highly theatrical depiction of life that bridges the gaps existing between the two cultures and creates something new in the process. The play is about a young woman, a former skating star with hopes for Olympic glory, who deserts her parents and brother, leaving them in near-poverty and shattering their hopes for the fame and acclaim few countries other than the United States afford. While the story has much to do with obligation and youthful rebellion, what sets the story apart is that it's seen through the eyes of the woman's 100 year-old grandfather.
• Ajax (por nobody) (Melbourne Fringe)
• Bai Li Wong Liebling (McCarter Theatre, 2002)
  A subversive look at a Chinese adoptee who returns to her native village as a young woman.
• Coastline (ASK)
• Iconana ()
• F.E.T.C.H. (ATL)
  In this "small installment of Virtual Hypertext Theater," playwright Alice Tuan has crafted a wild theatrical event that includes a pole, a bucket and an endless series of possibilities. What will happen next? In this new interactive universe, you get to decide.
• Hit (The Public, 2000)
• Roaring Girle (Foundy, 2002)
  An adaptation of Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s 1611 work, The Roaring Girle, about a woman of notorious exploits who keeps butting heads with the societal powers that be.
• Don't [expletive] With My Dotted Eye (Dad's Garage, 2004)
  An abstract piece about the meaning of punk rock.