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We’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve had several different productions that have happened across the country in that 10-year span. June is the First Fall, a play about a Chinese-American man who returns home to Hawaii, where he must confront his family after a difficult breakup. She was deeply interested in the facts, but had to fictionalize in the interests of drama.
I did ask Gordon for feedback while I was writing the play---but he was a busy man, always on the go, always traveling, and sometimes the best I could do was grab a few minute on the phone with him on the fly!Gordon has been played by a Korean American, a Chinese American, a Filipino American and three Japanese Americans – and Gordon’s wife told me she thought Gordon himself would have been very pleased by that! Leslie Ishii directed Greg Watanabe in a Perseverance Theatre production, and there have also been two other director-actor teams: Daniel Student and Makoto Hirano at Players and Players, and Ron Celona and Blake Kushi at Caochella Valley Rep. Marty Yu played Gordon in the first East West Players high school tour. And I love the idea of portraying other people, of trying to transform myself into someone else.But part of wanting to be a professional actor is also related to being Asian American. It felt that his story was one that was essential to share. As someone who prided myself on my Asian American heritage, how could I have no knowledge of this man, an American hero? Powered by 70+ experts and writers.Evaluations of a smorgasbord of Beethoven symphony reco...The final, ineluctable quality that Ornette Coleman bro...If there’s ever been a more distinctive jazz musician t...Music in Eight Parts is a welcome and inviting addition...Taking action on even a modest number of these suggesti...Rubin seems to have read my review hoping it was some other review by some other reviewer, someone more inclined...Thanks, Dan. That’s a huge topic, and I can’t cover it all here, but off the top of my head, I think of the phrase “two steps forward and one step back.” There are reasons to be encouraged. They loved the play, which was deeply gratifying, and I even ended up babysitting Gordon’s great-grandchild in the lobby so that his granddaughter could watch the show! Since 1991. ... statistics, identity, discrimination, and legislation. The FBI knocking on doors. Build and maintain a community of supportive, like-minded artists. In film and television, I find that I try to be much more private in what I am doing. I am telling my character’s own, private story and trusting the camera to come in and convey that to people who will watch it later, in my absence. People should see themselves represented onstage, on film, on TV. ©2020 Verizon Media. She is currently the chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis.
That is absolutely a motivation in what I do.When Lisa presented me with Jeanne’s script to read in 2009, I was shocked that I had never heard of Gordon. There are more Asian American series regulars than ever before, more indie filmmakers and screenwriters who are doing stellar work.
Table, sofa, rocking chair. He removes his bifocals, slips off his cardigan, and goes back in time to become Gordie, the idealistic, eldest son of a Japanese farming family in the state of Washington, as well as some 30 other characters Japanese and Caucasian, male and female, old and young.Mild-mannered and earnest in his white shirt and sweater vest, De La Fuente presents young Gordie as a typical all-American college student of the late 1930s.
Yet race was clearly a factor. So I had to do a lot of cutting and reworking before I felt I had achieved that.I think it would have been very difficult for most of the WWII Japanese American community members to “hold the truths” of their constitutional rights during that period of wartime, so rife with fear and hysteria and racial hostility, and to defy the government orders as Gordon did. “Death threats. Joel de la Fuente stars in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s 2018/2019 season opener, the regional premiere of Jeanne Sakata’s “Hold These Truths.” Inspired by the life of Gordon Hirabayashi, “Hold These Truths,” directed by Lisa Rothe, plays July 11-Aug. 5 at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto. Be ferocious about cultivating the reasons (and skills) you “love” about acting. A year later, the center obtained a $1 million grant from the State of California “to … His refusal to leave the University of Washington library and retire to his dorm for the night led to his arrest and conviction by the Seattle Federal District Court. Japanese-American resistance to these mandatory deportations is minimal: very few “nails” stick out. Many went into the camps, hoping that by cooperating with the government’s orders, they would win the trust of the American government, and also the trust of their fellow Americans. There is an investigation and his convictions are overturned.Professor Hirabayashi reconsiders his father’s proverb: “The nail that sticks out is the one that gets hit.” Very fine review of one more tragic and criminal period of US history. Who saved it?” Who brings justice within reach? It creates an insidious layer of self-apology. Some of the characters in Julia Cho’s play, opening Wednesday at East West Players, either study or speak dying languages — which was the inspiration for Kubzansky’s experiment. Just one unfortunate use of the term “white”– whatever that was (is). They can each be tremendously gratifying in their own specific ways, but the sharing aspect of the theater is special.So much is out of your control so do your best to attend to the things you can control. It chronicles Hirabayashi’s journey from college in Seattle all the way to the Supreme Court.Directed by Lisa Rothe, “Hold These Truths” shares the story of a young man who passionately defends his Constitutional rights against an unexpected adversary: his own country.“Hold These Truths” will be making its Northern California debut via TheatreWorks Silicon Valley with Filipino-American actor Joel de la Fuente starring as Hirabayashi.
And that makes it hard to do good work. But, above all, I wanted the play to tell a great story, vibrant and alive, and not just be a recitation of those facts. It makes it hard to own the difficult choice to follow the path of an artist.For me, the only time I really feel connected to an audience is in the theater. Your Community.