New American Play I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR Begins 5/8 At Ohio Theatre

THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT -- a 4-week cultural event featuring the premieres of American and Japanese plays, an award-winning film documentary, and open forums about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima 60 years later -- will be presented May 8 through 30 at The Ohio Theater (66 Wooster Street) in Manhattan, it has been announced by the co-producers of this world-premiere event, the Off-Broadway theater companies Voice & Vision and Crossing Jamaica Avenue.

THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT will feature the Off-Broadway world-premiere of I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, a new American play by Chiori Miyagawa; a screening of Steven Okazaki's 2007 award-winning documentary "White Light/Black Rain," and the presentation of little-known plays about the bombings by Japanese writers from the 1950's, performed together for the first time in English as part of THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT.

As well, THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT will host a series of talkbacks following select performances of " I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR with noted scholars and historians including Frenzika Seraphim, the Boston College professor and author of the book "War Memory and Social Politics in Japan," as well as filmmaker Risa Morimoto, who directed a documentary about kamikaze pilots, "Wings of Defeat."

A partial list of THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT events/dates follows:

-- I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, a new Off-Broadway play by Chiori Miyagawa, previewing May 8, opening May 14 and running through May 30; directed by Jean Wagner, with a cast featuring Joel de la Fuente, Obie-winner Julianna Francis-Kelly and Sue Jean Kim

-- "White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," the 2007 award-winning documentary by Academy Award-winning director Steven Okazaki featuring interviews with 14 survivors of the atomic bombings, will be screened on Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17 at 2:30 p.m.

-- Monday night readings of three plays by Japanese writers about the bombings:
May 11 at 7:30 pm, THE FACE OF JIZO by Hisashi Inoue (1959), translated by Roger Pulvers
May 18 at 7:30 pm, THE ELEPHANT by Monoru Betsuyaku,
translated by Roger Pulvers (set in 1948, written in 1994)
May 25 at 7:30 pm, THE HEAD OF MARY by Chikao Tanaka (1962), translated by David G. Goodman
All play readings are directed by Sonoko Kawahara.

I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR, the new play by Chiori Miyagawa, directed by Jean Wagner, will open THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT and run throughout at the Ohio Theatre (66 Wooster Street).

Previewing May 8 and opening May 13, I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR revolves around two love stories: one, played out in memories, involves a Japanese man, who returns to Hiroshima after fighting in WWII, and a Japanese woman who dies instantly at the moment of detonation of the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The other, involving the same man and a French actress, occurs in 1959 in "restored" Hiroshima. The Japanese woman -- or her ghost -- haunts the second love story. Ms. Miyagawa's play, a singular tragedy of atomic war told through personal loss, is a poetic response to the 1959 French film "Hiroshima Mon Amour," and asks, "Who is entitled to memory?"

The cast of I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR includes Joel de la Fuente, best known for his portrayal of Ruben Morales on the hit series "Law &Order: SVU," and whose theater credits include Ms. Miyagawa's AMERICA DREAMING at The Vineyard, NAATCO's COWBOY V. SAMURAI, and Ma-Yi Theater Company's THE SQUARE.

Joining Mr. de la Fuente are Obie Award-winner Juliana Francis-Kelly (Richard Foreman's MARIA DEL BOSCO) and Sue Jean Kim (THE DRUNKEN CITY).

I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR features set design by Glenn Reed; lighting design by Rick Martin; production design by Hap Tivey; costume design by Liz Prince; choreography by Hillary Spector; and original music by Du Yun.

Playwright Chiori Miyagawa's first play, AMERICA DREAMING, premiered at the Vineyard Theatre in 1995, starring Billy Crudup, directed by Michael Mayer. Her other plays include COMET HUNTER; NOTHING FOREVER and YESTERDAY'S WINDOW (both at New York Theater Workshop); WOMAN KILLER (Here Arts Center/CJA); LEAVING EDEN; AWAKENING (PS 122); RED AGAIN (presented as part of Women's Project "The Antigone Project," and named one of the season's best by The New York Times); JAMAIC AVENUE (FringeNYC); FIREDANCE (Voice &Vision); and among others, BROKEN MORNING. Ms. Miyagawa's plays vary in style, yet all reflect her interest in memory and identity. An anthology of her plays, "Thousand Years Waiting and Other Plays," is forthcoming from Seagull Books.

Director Jane Wagner implemented Voice &Vision Theater's annual ENVISION Retreat, the Sky Woman Festival, the first Native American &Aboriginal Women's Theater Festival in New York City, and summer festival of new plays held at Playwrights Horizons, and other programs where she developed and directed works including Yeardley Smith's THE GOOD LIFE, Jose Rivera's MARICELA DE LA LUZ LIGHTS THE WORLD, Wendy Kesselman's THE BLACK MONK, and among others Ana Traina's IN AUDELA. Her directing credits include Colette Burson's A DRY AND THIRSTY LAND, Wendy Kesselman's THE NOTEBOOK, and the musical HANS IN LUCK by Margie Duffield and Dan Ashkenaze. Ms. Wagner is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Voice &Vision Theater, which has developed and produced original plays by Kia Corthron, Lynn Nottage, Elyse Singer, Yeardley Smith, Karen Hartman, Ruth Malezech and Mabou Mines and others that have subsequently received greater recognition.

In "White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," documentary filmmaker Steven Okazaki -- winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1990 for "Days of Waiting" -- looks at the reality of nuclear warfare through first-hand accounts from people whose lives were forever changed by the atomic bomb. The film features interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings. The film won a 2008 Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking. Additionally, the documentary was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2007.

Mr. Okazaki's other films include the Oscar-nominated documentaries "The Conscience of Nhem En," The Mushroom Club," and "Unfinished Business."

Voice &Vision develops and produces vibrant theater works with women at the core, and provides them with time, space and resources to create in an environment free from commercial pressures. Founded as a not-for-profit in 1990, Voice &Vision's programming includes professional and educational opportunities for both established and emerging artists to articulate their voices and realize their visions. At the heart of Voice &Vision's programming is the ENVISION Retreat at Bard College in the summer, followed by the ENVISION Lab Series. Voice &Vision is under the guidance of Jean Wagner, Artistic Director and Abigail Katz, Producer.

Crossing Jamaica Avenue is a multi-disciplinary, multicultural theater company that produces new plays, re-imaginings of classics, and a hybrid theater form that merges stories and poetry with music and movement. We are committed to bringing audiences an original theater experience, blended from the Western and Eastern aesthetics that is our signature. This artistic fusion is expressed in a different form with each production, through themes addressed--from specific, socially and politically relevant issues to abstract struggles of the human heart -- music, performance style, and/or visuals.

THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT runs May 8-30 at The Ohio Theater (66 Wooster Street): I HAVE BEEN TO HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR runs Wednesdays through Sundays at 7:30pm, with additional performances Saturday, May 9 at 2:30pm and Saturday, May 30 at 2:30pm. Tickets are $18, students and seniors $15. Admission is free to MONDAY NIGHT READING SERIES: VOICES FROM HIROSHIMA on Mondays, May 11, 18 and 25 at 7:30. Admission is also free to WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN screenings on Saturday May 16 and Sunday, May 17 at 2:30pm.

For tickets reservations to all THE HIROSHIMA PROJECT events, call 212-868-4444 or visit www.SmartTix.com.

For additional information, please visit www.HiroshimaProject.org

The website features startling photos of atomic bomb victims previously unpublished in the United States, along with American news coverage of the atomic attacks from August 7, 1945. As well, The Hiroshima Project web site will contain an analysis of a famously cancelled Enola Gay exhibition scheduled at the Smithsonian in 1995.