Kumu Kahua Theatre Announces Its 41st Season

Kumu Kahua Theatre returns for its 41st season this October with three world premieres, a long-awaited revival and a unique holiday production. Despite financial challenges over the past year, the theater-with just two staff and a core of dedicated volunteers-has put together an outstanding program that underscores the institution's mission: Plays about life in Hawai‘i. Plays by Hawai‘i's playwrights. Plays for Hawai‘i's people.

"The theme this year is ‘no fear,'" says artistic director Harry Wong, who selected as the season opener the hard-hitting drama Cane Fields Burning by frequent Kumu contributor Kemuel DeMoville. California-based DeMoville, who earned his MFA in playwrighting from the University of Hawai‘i, penned the moving 2009 one-act play Kalauiokoolau, about Koolau the leper.

DeMoville again turns to Japanese Noh theater to tell his story of a Japanese-American Hawai‘i family haunted by a tragic, violent secret played out in their grandfather's plantation past. Cane Fields earned DeMoville first prize in last year's Kumu Kahua/UH Mänoa Playwrighting Contest.

For the holidays, Kumu Kahua switches it up and enters musical territory with the high-spirits-in-the-face-of-adversity production of A Jivebomber's Christmas.

Then in January, Kumu Kahua presents the world premiere of its theatrical adaptation of Lois-Ann Yamanaka's book Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre. Wong calls Yamanaka "one of Hawai‘i's bravest writers," recalling the controversy her first major work stirred in the islands, for its use of pidgin and frank portrayal of the issue of race in Hawai‘i.

"It's a girls coming-of-age story, and it's basically told through four different perspectives, centering around a single characeter," explains Wong. "Nothing is being added or changed to Lois-Ann's text. We're using the poem, and staging it. The play makes physical those voices. I hope that it has an empowering effect, that it portrays these girls as taking control of their story. By the end they don't grow up but they've gained self-knowledge.

Kumu rounds out the season with two plays that look at native Hawaiian history and issues. Writer-musician-actor Sean T.C. O'Malley returns to the intriguing character of RoBert Wilcox for inspiration in Wilcox's Shot. O'Malley first brought the complex native Hawaiian political character to life in 2002's To the Last Hawaiian Soldier. Now O'Malley hones in on Wilcox's time in Washington, D.C., as Hawai‘i's first delegate to Congress. His work is followed by the a revival of Alani Apio's Kamau A‘e, a powerful look at the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement.

Kumu Kahua was invited to take this production to the 2008 Festival of Pacific Arts in Pago Pago, American Samoa. To participate in the pan-Pacific festival, artists must be invited by the Hawai‘I delegation, and Kumu Kahua has again been invited to take Kamau A‘e to the 2012 festival, taking place in the Solomon Islands.

"We're really excited about the possibility of taking Kamau A‘e to Honiara," says Wong. "The entire Pacific basin is represented at the festival. The play is about the struggles of the native Hawaiian population, and getting the chance to share that story with Pacific Islanders is important. There's an underrepresentation of the stories being told about Hawai‘i. This is a way to bring it to a larger group of people, who are dealing with similar types of issues."

SEASON TICKETS
By purchasing season subscriptions, theater goers can save up to 35 percent on ticket prices and have access to guaranteed seats for every production.

A new season subscription is $75, a 25 percent off individual ticket prices. Current 40th-season subscribers can resubscribe for just $60, a 35 percent savings.

To purchase season subscriptions, people can call the theater box office at 536-4441, Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

2011-2012 KUMU KAHUA THEATRE SEASON SCHEDULE

Cane Fields Burning
A World Premiere by Kemuel DeMoville
Ghosts, demons, and dark memories haunt Hawai‘i's plantation fields in this tale of a curse passed down through the generations. An old man has died; as his son and grandson sort through his belongings, the photograph of a beautiful woman exposes the violent secret buried in the old man's past.
Winner of the 2010 Kumu Kahua/UH M?noa Playwriting Contest, Cane Fields Burning uses the elegant power of Japanese Noh theatre to tell the story of a family struggling to escape its tortured history.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8pm: September 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30; October, 1, 6, 7, 8, 2011
Sundays 2pm: September 11, 18, 25; October 2, *9, 2011

A Jivebomber's Christmas
A Kumu Kahua Premiere by Saachiko and Dom Magwili
It's Christmas, 1943, but nobody feels like celebrating. The world is at war and the soldiers of the 442nd Battalion are fighting in Europe. Meanwhile, back home, Japanese Americans are being illegally detained in internment camps. A group of kids, raised on jazz and jive, social clubs and swing dancing, decides to raise the camp's spirits-with a Christmas show.
California-based Sachiko and Dom Magwili are pillars of Asian-American theater, and their musical, which premiered in 1993, has become a milestone among works about the Japanese-American experience.
Filled with song and dance, laughter and warmth, A Jivebomber's Christmas arrives at Kumu Kahua just in time for the holidays.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8pm: November 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 25, 26; December 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 2011
Sundays 2pm: November 13, 20, 27; December 4, *11, 2011
(No show Thursday, November 24, because of Thanksgiving)

Saturday Night at the P?hala Theatre
A World Premiere by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
Adapted by John H.Y. Wat and Harry Wong, III
John H.Y. Wat and Harry Wong adapt for the stage Lois-Ann Yamanaka's collection of four novellas, told in verse by four teenage working-class narrators. Meet Tita, Girlie, Lucy, Kala, and other young women on the brink of adulthood, as they explore sexual awakening, family abuse, peer pressure, and identity. With humor, pain, and raw honesty, their voices come to life on Kumu Kahua's intimate stage. This is sure to become another Kumu Kahua signature production.
The winner of the Pushcart Prize, Saturday Night at the P?hala Theatre was Lois-Ann Yamanaka's first major work and introduced the world to one of Hawai‘i's bravest writers.
This play contains strong language.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8pm: January 26, 27, 28; February 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 2012
Sundays 2pm: January 29; February 12, 19, *26, 2012
(No show Sunday, February 5, because of the Superbowl)

Wilcox's Shot
A World Premiere
By Sean T.C. O'Malley
Robert Kalanihiapo Wilcox, the revolutionary-turned-politician, arrives in Washington as Hawai‘i's first delegate to Congress in 1901. A man of action in a powerless position, Wilcox confronts some of the most famous names of the era as he grapples with his own role in shaping Hawai‘i's future.
Wilcox's Shot dramatizes the life of one of Hawai‘i's most fascinating historical figures, at the dawn of the 20th century.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8pm: January 26, 27, 28; February 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 2012
Sundays 2pm: January 29; February 12, 19, *26, 2012
(No show Sunday, February 5, because of the Superbowl)

K?mau A‘e
A Kumu Kahua Revival by Alani Apio
The Hawaiian Sovereignty movement, with its complexities and controversies, takes the stage in this powerful drama. Fresh out of prison, Michael Kawaipono Mahekona joins a group of activists on a mission to reclaim Hawaiian land. As the group splinters over whether to stand firm or compromise on its principles, Michael must decide how to stay true to what he believes.
First produced in 1997, K?mau A‘e returns to Kumu Kahua, sharing its message with a new generation of audiences. This play contains strong language.
Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8pm: May 31; June 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29, 30, 2012
Sundays 2pm: June 3, 10, 17, 24; July *1, 2012

ABOUT KUMU KAHUA THEATRE
Forty-year-old Kumu Kahua is the only theater group in the state that nurtures local playwrights, offering them a sounding board and venue, and telling Hawai‘i's story through plays about these islands, its people, its cultures and contemporary life.. Without Kumu Kahua, seminal works about Hawai‘i by Hawai‘i playwrights-such as Lee Cataluna's Folks You Meet At Longs and Edward Sakamoto's Aloha Las Vegas-would not have made it to the stage, and into people's hearts. Founded in the early 1970s by University of Hawai‘i graduate students, Kumu Kahua has gained national and international recognition for its regional program.

With more than 200 plays to its credit, the theater's artistic and technical experience attracts some of Hawai‘i's most talented playwrights, actors, directors, designers and other theatre artists. The audience at Kumu Kahua is treated to the unique experience of hearing their voice on stage and seeing their lives unfold in the action of the play.

Kumu Kahua productions are made possible with support from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, celebrating more than 30 years of culture and the arts in Hawai‘i, and the National Endowment for the Arts; The Annenberg Foundation; Paid for in part by the taxpayers of the City & County of Honolulu; the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts; and foundations, businesses and patrons.

 

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