The 2nd National Asian American Theater Festival Kicks Off 10/13

The 2nd National Asian American Theater Festival will kick-off with performances on Tuesday, October 13 at Theater for the New City (155 First Ave. at 10th St.), followed by an opening party event from 9:30 to 11:30 p.m. at Bubble Lounge (228 W. Broadway) in Manhattan.

Featured guest performers at the Bubble party will include Aaron Yoo, star of the films horror flicks "Disturbia" and "Friday the 13th," Joel de la Fuente, a regular on TV's "Law & Order SVU," and Deborah Craig of "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" on Broadway. Festival attendees will be invited to join the acting stars as fellow cast members to perform in skits written especially for the Festival opening event by the Asian-American Playwrights Michael Lew, Rehana Mirza, Michael Golamco and Sung Rno.

Admission to the National Asian American Theater Festival kick-off event at Bubble Lounge is $25 and includes a complimentary drink, food and a raffle ticket to perform with the stars in the aforementioned skits. Additional raffles will be held for Free All-Event access passages to the 2nd National Asian American Theater Festival.

Scheduled for a week of performances from Oct. 13 to 18, the 2nd National Asian American Theater Festival will feature performances by a diverse group of Asian-American Playwrights, directors, choreographers and actors at Theater for the New City.

National and local Asian American theater artists and companies are "Articulating New Bodies of Words" at the 2nd NATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN THEATER FESTIVAL

One Week Only!  October 13-18 at Theater for the New City

Highlights include new works by  Kristina Wong, AlIce Tuan, Soo-Jin Lee, Sheetal Gandhi, and Shishir Kurup

Also on tap during FESTIVAL week in NYC:
Readings of new plays from Ma-Yi Theatre Company's Writers Lab, National Asian American Theater Company's new adaptation of THE SEAGULL and Pan Asian Repertory Theatre's new musical IMELDA

The 2nd NATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN THEATER FESTIVAL (NAATF) will bring over 100 theater artists from across the U.S. - playwrights, directors, actors, designers, dancers, musicians, producers - for a week of performances of works by established and emerging Asian American theater artists -- including Kristina Wong, AlIce Tuan, Soo-Jin Lee, Sheetal Gandhi, Shishir Kurup, and others -- in New York City from October 13 to 18, at Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue at 10th Street) in Manhattan.

The Festival is organized by Mia Katigbak, Artistic Director of the NY-based National Asian American Theater Company, and the Korean-American playwright Lloyd Suh ("American Hwangap"). "NAATF celebrates and affirms Asian American theater artists, their significant contributions to the national cultural landscape, and the dynamic innovations they bring to the field," says Ms. Katigbak, a member of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA), the organization that presents NAATF.

The 2nd NATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN THEATER FESTIVAL will feature performances of:

" SHARIF DON'T LIKE IT, Shishir Kurup's play about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's dubious treatment of people of Asian and Middle Eastern descent post-9/11.

" 20th CENTURY PERFORMANCE IN THE 21st CENTURY: THE FUTURE OF ASIAN AMERICAN THEATRE, public forums that examine Asian American theatre past and present through a variety of performance art and interactive panels, presented by Asian Pacific Americans C*ntemporary Unilateral Neo-Theatre (APAC*NT), a collective of playwrights and directors including Kristina Wong ("Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), AlIce Tuan ("Ajax [por nobody]"), Katie Pearl ("Nita & Zita") and Hatnim Lee.

" BAHU-BETI-BIWI, (Daughter-in-Law, Daughter, Wife) Sheetal Gandhi's dance-theater solo which wraps North Indian music traditions and family characters into a contemporary tour de force that glides between humorous portraiture and active resistance. The piece mines the texts and subtexts of centuries-old women's songs to create an arresting vision of generational shifts that are reshaping our definitions of freedom and compromise, desire and longing, duty and love. In Bahu-Beti-Biwi, Gandhi's characters have conversations with each other across time and space, merging dance, live singing and rhythmic text based on the language of the tabla (North Indian classical drum). An original score for the work is the product of a flourishing collaboration with composer Joe Trapanese whose music for the stage has been described as "precise and evocative" by the New York Times.

" DON'T YOU FEEL IT, TOO? a new work about freeing one's inner spirit by dancing your inner life in public spaces by Minneapolis-based theatre artist Marcus Young.

" LABFEST III, readings of new plays presented by the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, the resident company of Asian American Playwrights under the aegis of the Obie Award-winning Ma-Yi Theater Company. "Labfest" is curated by Qui Nguyen and Lloyd Suh, respectively the authors of the recently acclaimed Off-Broadway plays "Soul Samurai" and "American Hwangap." LABFEST III will be presented at Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue), October 6-17. For additional information about LABFEST III, visit www.ma-yitheatre.org

" IMELDA, a new musical about Imelda Marcos, presented by the Obie Award-winning Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Tisa Chang artistic producing director, in association with East West Players. Written by Sachi Oyama, Nathan Wang and Aaron Coleman, IMELDA is a new musical about the former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, spanning the years from Philippine Independence in the 1940's to the Marcos' fall from grace in the 1980's. Tim Dang directs. IMELDA will be presented at the Julia Miles Theater (424 West 55th Street; tickets to this production are $55), September 22 through October 18. For additional information about IMELDA, visit www.panasianrep.org

" Anton Chekhov's THE SEAGULL, with an all Asian-American cast, presented by the Obie Award-winning National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO), directed by Gia Forakis. The production will pay particular attention to Chekhov's subtitle: "A Comedy in 4 Acts." Commedia, clowning, slapstick, farcical, presentational, Symbolist, anything by naturalistic -- the production will serve the human comedy so masterfully achieved by Chekhov in his characterization of despair and the will to live despite this condition. THE SEAGULL will be presented at Theater for the New City (155 First Avenue), September 26 through October 18. For additional information about THE SEAGULL, visit www.naatco.org

The first NATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN THEATER FESTIVAL was held in New York in June, 2007.

Tickets to National Asian American Theatre Festival productions range in price from $5 to $18. The performance schedule varies from Oct. 13 to 18. For performance and ticket information visit www.naatf.org or call 646 522 0931.

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