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What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres

Posted by Suzanne Kai - on Sunday, 08 May 2022

What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres
What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres MAY 8, 2022 With “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres” the documentary about me, now out today and streaming merrily along on Netflix, I’m officially in the film industry.  Actually, that’s been the case since last June, when the documentary, which stole its title from a popular column at Asian Connections created by director Suzanne Joe Kai's son Mike when he was 14, premiered at the...

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Photos: On the Town with Rick Shiomi, Co-Editor of “Asian American Plays for a New Generation”, in Washington D.C. and New York

Posted by Lia Chang on Thursday, 04 August 2011

R.A. Shiomi's Yellow Fever. Photo by Lia Chang

On Wednesday, July 27, I reconnected with Rick Shiomi, the author of one of my favorite plays, “Yellow Fever,” when we were both in Washington D.C. at the Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The groundbreaking Asian-North American playwright, taiko troupe leader, and artistic director of Mu Performing Arts, was on a week long book tour to promote “Asian American Plays for a New Generation” (Temple University Press, June 2011), which he co-edited with Josephine Lee and Don Eitel.

Rick Shiomi with my display of photos “In Rehearsal”, drawn from the Lia Chang Theater Portfolio at the Library of Congress/AAPI Collection. Photo by Lia Chang

Reme Grefalda, the curator of the Asian Pacific Islander Collection, had put together a marvelous program which included his talk about the Anthology, and a week-long display in the Asian Reading Room of the Library of Congress.

Rick Shiomi looks at a glass case of the published works of his fellow Asian American Theater Pioneering peers including Frank Chin, Philip Kan Gotanda, David Henry Hwang, Velina Hasu Houston and Genny Lim. Photo by Lia Chang

The display featured 37 photographs drawn from the Lia Chang Theater Portfolio including Thom Sesma’s Makeup Transformation as Scar in Disney’s “The Lion King Las Vegas”; rehearsals of a staged concert of Robert Lee and Leon Ko’s musical “

Version 3.0, a major new collection of contemporary Asian American plays edited by Chay Yew

Posted by Lia Chang on Tuesday, 09 August 2011

Chay Yew Photo by Lia Chang


Version 3.0, a major new collection of contemporary Asian American plays edited by Chay Yew, is hot off the presses courtesy of Theatre Communications Group (TCG). This vital anthology includes a foreword by David Henry Hwang, introduction by Chay Yew and eight full-length plays, each paired with a statement by the author.

Version 3.0, the first major anthology of contemporary Asian American drama in almost two decades, includes Julia Cho’s Durango, Sunil Kuruvilla’s Rice Boy, Han Ong’s Swoony Planet, Sung Rno’s wAve, Diana Son’s Satellites, Alice Tuan’s Last of the Suns and Chay Yew’s Question 27, Question 28. Also included is The Square, a choral piece meditating on 120 years of relationships between non-Asian Americans and the Asian American community, written by sixteen of today’s leading playwrights: Bridget Carpenter, Ping Chong, Constance Congdon, Kia Corthron, Maria Irene Fornes, Philip Kan Gotanda, Jessica Hagedorn, David Henry Hwang, Robert O’Hara, Craig Lucas, Han Ong, José Rivera, Diana Son, Alice Tuan, Mac Wellman and Chay Yew.

PIng Chong Photo by Lia Chang


“I am inspired by the writers in this volume, who have questioned assumptions and expanded the palate of our nation’s dramatic literature… “Version 3.0″ playwrights have kept Asian American theatre vital. On a personal level, seeing and reading their plays has kept me young,” writes David Henry Hwang.

Foremost American Taiko Artist, Kenny Endo, to perform in Tokyo on April 24 and April 30

Posted by Lia Chang on Saturday, 23 April 2011

Master Taiko Artist Kenny Endo Photo by Lia Chang


One of the foremost names on the American wadaiko scene, Kenny Endo, returns to Tokyo for 2 engagements on April 24 at Shibuya’s O-West and on April 30 at Minami Aoyama’s “Mandala.” The concert at the Mandala is called “Mitsudomoe – Mind, Body, Spirit.”

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