Calafia Begins

In December 2013, I learned that the State of California was probably named after a mythical Island of California which appears in 15th and 16th century Spanish lore. In the most popular story by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, the island is occupied by an Amazon-like race of dark-skinned, warrior women whose queen is Calafia. I found myself fascinated by this fictional woman - the leader of her female-only tribe. I was fascinated that someone who was both a woman and a woman of color was presented in such a mighty, awe-inspiring, and typically masculine way.

Unfortunately, the story of Calafia doesn't end the way I would like. She converts to Christianity in the end and marries a man, ultimately showing that the ways of the Lord can subdue even the most brutish of savages. No. Thank. You.

Fortunately, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo himself gives me a way around. The backdrop of Calafia's story is the battle for Constantinople between the Byzantines and the Ottomans in the 1400's. History tells us that the Ottomans defeated the Byzantines in 1453 and took back this important city. However, in Montalvo's story, it is the Byzantines who are victorious. Read: it is the Christians who defeat the Muslims in his version.

I figure, if Montalvo thought it fit to change history in order to suit his storytelling desires, then I don't particularly feel the need to stay absolutely true to his story. Read: In my adaptation of Calafia, she will not be submitting to a man or converting to Christianity. I actually don't yet know what Calafia will be doing in my adaptation. But one thing I do know: I want the show to feature a "wall of women" as its primary musical source.

So what does that mean? A month ago, I had only vague notions. But in May 2016, I invited eight incredible female actors to join me for what I called a "voice and sound exploration workshop." Thanks to support from the Playwrights Foundation, I was able to get time and space to conduct the workshop. Since this will be a story about a race of isolated women who never actually existed, I was intrigued by how to find sounds that were simultaneously primal and other-worldly.

We often typify women's voices as higher-pitched, softer and sweeter. But women's voices are so much more dynamic than we give them credit for. Sure they can soothe, squeal and scream, but they can also shriek, groan, grunt, moan, command and overpower. And let me tell you, these actors did not hold back in exploring all of these sounds unabashedly and freely. I found myself utterly speechless at moments as I beheld what the eight of them could bring out from within them. I am utterly thankful to these colleagues for being willing to experiment, be vulnerable and weird, and to let me listen to them for three hours.

I'm not entirely sure what this all means for the next steps of Calafia. I only know that I've now taken a huge creative step forward by having this sound workshop. Calafia is officially my next musical theatre project.

Zootopia and Research

A fascinating look at the research that went into Zootopia. I'm inspired to continue my research for Story Explorers and Calafía, remembering that so much of writing actually happens before writing!

A Letter from the Kiyamas!

Earlier this year, I wrote a letter to the descendants of Henry Kiyama (author of The Four Immigrants Manga) introducing myself and expressing my gratitude for letting me adapt Henry's work for the stage.

And they wrote back! (Translated by Frederik L. Schodt)

"We are very grateful to what Min-san is doing, and wish him success in his project.  We are sure that Yoshitaka's life in America, and the history of Japanese immigrants, are not easy to turn into a musical. But we are very honored that he appreciates Yoshitaka as an artist, and we
would love to meet him and thank him sometime. We cannot speak English, unfortunately, but we would still love to see the Four Immigrants Manga musical some day.  Please convey our appreciation to him."

I am very honored to have heard from them and to receive their blessing for this project!

They also sent me some Four Immigrants merchandise used to help promote Kiyama's hometown of Neu!

Cookie of Creativity

Thich Nhat Hanh shares in his book Peace Is Every Step about a memory from his childhood when his mother would bring him a cookie, and he would eat it with joy and in peace. "I did not think of the future, I did not regret the past," he writes. Eating the cookie was a truly serene moment for Hanh, and one he channels now as an adult when he eats.

After reading this, I've tried to think about an equivalent memory from childhood when I was so attuned to the present moment; a time when I so enjoyed what I was doing that I was freed up from worry. I realized that for me, these were moments of creative work.

Once, in high school, over a three-day weekend, I created a stop-motion animation film set to the song "Zero to Hero" from the Disney movie Hercules. No one told me to do it. There was no deadline I was trying to reach. I simply conjured the idea up in my head, set up the camera and figurines, and did it! This happened a lot when I was a kid, whether it was making comic books or the guide map to my made-up waterslide park or recording songs I had written. I would have surges of creativity initiated from within, when I just needed to make something and my mind would enter a sort of zen-zone, flowing and engrossed in the project.

The heretofore mentioned stop-motion animated film.

As an adult, I often find it hard to enter into that zone. There are a lot more "grown-up" things like logic, deadlines and social obligations that need tending to. But remembering my childhood bursts of creativity helps me feel more motivated to get going on my projects. Hopefully, when I'm in the midst of a rewrite or drowning in books for research, I can channel the "cookie of my childhood" and find that place of joy and freedom once more.

Orientalism & The Mikado

EVEN MORE RECENT UPDATE: Brad Erickson, Executive Director of Theatre Bay Area, wrote an excellent follow-up article after watching Lamplighters' The New Mikado. I just happened to be in the audience with him on the same day, and I echo his sentiments in the article.

MORE RECENT UPDATE: Lamplighters has announced that its production of The Mikado will be recontextualized in Italy. This decision does not come without its naysayers, but I feel it is a creative solution that is worth a try.

UPDATE: Lamplighters has shared an apology and their plans to produce a significantly revised version of The Mikado. I'm looking forward to what this yields.

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Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company has recently shared an open letter about an upcoming production of The Mikado at Lamplighters Music Theatre. You can read and sign the letter here. The following is something I posted on Facebook, detailing my thoughts on orientalism in the Gilbert & Sullivan work.

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My two cents (or three, or four): Gilbert & Sullivan's score for The Mikado has its moments of brilliance. I can hear why people love the music, because it indeed soars at times, titillates at others. But all that lovely music cannot mask the orientalism of the work - the portrayal of Japan as other, or "queer and quaint" as the lyrics themselves attest. And perhaps in 1885, Japanese-ness was other, new, novel to Great Britain. But more than a century later, in today's America, I don't think it makes much sense to continue grasping onto the show without questioning its construction and sentiments.

Producers of the work often argue that The Mikado is not about the Japanese; it is a satire about the British. But that's exactly the problem. By claiming The Mikado is not about the Japanese, they may as well be saying "Your culture is just the set dressing for our story." On our stages and screens, Asian cultures are often relegated to the background or not considered with sensitivity at all. Yellow-face is still performed without a second thought.

But regardless of how one chooses to set or direct the piece, you can't look at the TEXT of The Mikado and say it's NOT about the Japanese - or at least about a 19th-century (read: outdated) perception of the Japanese. The opening lyrics of the work are "If you want to know who we are / we are gentlemen of Japan" (Now imagine a group of white men dressed in kimonos singing it loudly and proudly). You can't take a line like "You forget that in Japan girls do not arrive at years of discretion until they are fifty" and say that it is not making an oft stereotypical observation about Japanese (and other Asian) women. You can't hear names like "Yum-Yum," "Nanki-Poo" and "Peep-Bo" and pretend like they aren't meant to mimic and mock Asian names, even if they are based in English phrases of the day.

Press Photo from Lamplighters' 2008 production of The Mikado.

Another argument for the work is that Japanese people aren't offended by it. Indeed, a group of Japanese actors once even performed the piece in the UK. While that makes for an interesting and complicated tangent, it is not germaine to a discussion about The Mikado's history of racial re/presentation in the USA. Yes, perhaps a Japanese person might attend a production of The Mikado and think it's silly and not that big of a deal. But that same production for many Asian Americans is loaded with a history of being pushed into an "other" by our society.

After some back-and-forth with Ferocious Lotus, Lamplighters has now announced that they are re-setting the show in England. As a lover of dramaturgy, I can't see how this will work. I can't see how they will ignore ALL references to Japan - whether textually or musically - without severely splicing up the show. The very title "The Mikado" is an archaic term used by the British to refer to the Japanese Emperor. This choice of re-setting leaves me curious.

I would be interested to see how audiences react to a Mikado that has been "de-Japanified." Would they find it just as charming, masterful, delightful? Or could it be that the very thing audiences cling to so fiercely about The Mikado is its "queer and quaint" orientalism?