Victory Gardens Theater to Take Part in Alphawood Gallery Exhibition Reading Series with 'RESISTING INJUSTICE'

Victory Gardens Theater, in collaboration with Alphawood Gallery, presents the reading series Resisting Injustice: Two Play Readings about the Incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II, featuring Question 27, Question 28 and Hold These Truths as part of Alphawood Gallery's first original exhibition Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties.

Question 27, Question 28, written by Victory Gardens Artistic Director Chay Yew, takes place on Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at 7:30pm at Victory Gardens; a special exhibition tour will take place at 6:00pm will take place at Alphawood Gallery at 2401 N Halsted prior to the performance.

Hold These Truths, by Jeanne Sakata, takes place on Thursday, August 3, 2017 at 6:00pm at Alphawood Gallery. The readings are free and open to the public. Then They Came for Me, an exhibition about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, runs through November 19, 2017 at Alphawood Gallery. Victory Gardens Theater is located at 2433 N Lincoln Avenue.

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Question 27, Question 28

Wednesday, August 2 at 7:30pm

Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N Lincoln Avenue

Question 27, Question 28 by playwright and Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Chay Yew tells the story of the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and its aftermath through the voices of a variety of Japanese American and non-Japanese American women. All of the play's lines come from "interviews, transcripts and testimonials" by women who lived through that experience. The cast includes four characters, three Asian and one Caucasian, who read the lines, with the real-life figure from whose testimony they come from first identified. Among the many women whose words are used are Yuri Kochiyama, Monica Sone, Mary Tsukamoto, Yoshiko Uchida, and many others, including some non-Japanese Americans such as teacher Eleanor Gerard Sekerak and Eleanor Roosevelt.

The cast includes Kirsten Fitzgerald, Emily Kuroda, Jeanne Sakata, and Tamlyn Tomita. A special pre-show exhibition tour will take place at 6:00pmwill take place at Alphawood Gallery, located at 2401 N Halsted.

Hold These Truths

Thursday, August 3, 6:00pm

Alphawood Gallery, 2401 N Halsted Street

Playwright and actor Jeanne Sakata will perform and read from her play Hold These Truths, a biographical play about Gordon Hirabayashi, a Japanese American resistor. During WWII in Seattle, University of Washington student Gordon Hirabayashi fights the U.S. government's orders to forcibly remove and mass incarcerate all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast. As he struggles to reconcile his country's betrayal with his passionate belief in the U.S. Constitution, Hirabayashi begins a 50-year journey toward a greater understanding of America's triumphs---and a confrontation with its failures. In May 2012, President Barack Obama posthumously awardEd Gordon Hirabayashi the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. The performance will be followed by a Q&A with the artists and directors of both Behind the Fence productions.

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Alphawood Gallery has partnered with the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) to produce the Gallery's first original exhibition, Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties. This exhibition examines a dark episode in U.S. history when, in the name of national security, the government incarcerated 120,000 citizens and legal residents during World War II without due process or other constitutional protections to which they were entitled. Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, set in motion the forced removal and imprisonment of all people of Japanese ancestry living on or near the West Coast. During this 75th anniversary year of the executive order, we look back at this shameful past to learn lessons for our present and future in the face of new challenges encouraged by fearmongering and racism at the highest levels of government.

Then They Came for Me presents this historical event from multiple perspectives. Drawing upon the powerful images culled from the book Un-American: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II by Chicago-based photo historians Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, the exhibition features works by renowned American photographers Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams and others documenting the eviction of Japanese Americans from their homes and their subsequent lives in incarceration camps. Lange and others were hired by the U.S. government's War Relocation Authority (WRA) to record the "evacuation" and "internment" process. In addition to the WRA photographers, the exhibition presents views of the incarceration by Japanese American artists Toyo Miyatake and Miné Okubo. Images by Miyatake, a professional photographer who was incarcerated at the Manzanar

Relocation Center, reveal details of the camps that were prohibited in WRA photography, such as barbed wire and guard towers, shown alongside his illuminating images of the imprisoned residents' daily lives. Similarly, pages from Miné Okubo's remarkable illustrated memoir Citizen 13660 document her own incarceration experience with poignant drawings and forthright text.

The JASC and a number of collectors from the Chicago area have generously lent art, objects, documents and other historical materials that provide glimpses into the personal experiences of those who were incarcerated. Highlights include ID cards and tags, anti-Japanese propaganda, suitcases, diaries, handmade furniture, wood carvings and other works of art, high school yearbooks and newsletters produced by camp inmates, military accoutrements, indefinite leave clearances, materials related to resettlement in Chicago and eventual redress and reparation. Specially compiled video testimonies by former inmates, their family members and community leaders are installed throughout the exhibition.

Then They Came for Me was organized by Alphawood Gallery in collaboration with the Japanese American Service Committee.

Alphawood Foundation Chicago is a grant-making private foundation working for an equitable, just and humane society. It awards grants to more than 200 organizations annually, primarily in the areas of the arts and arts education, advocacy, architecture and preservation, domestic violence prevention, the environment, promotion and protection of the rights of LGBT citizens and people living with HIV/AIDS, and other human and civil rights.

Alphawood Gallery is supported by Alphawood Foundation Chicago. It was created to serve as a venue for exhibitions furthering the Foundation's charitable mission. The 12,000-square-foot space first served this purpose for the Chicago presentation of the groundbreaking national touring exhibition, Art AIDS America, which was on display from December 1, 2016 to April 2, 2017. Alphawood Gallery is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11am-8pm, and Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am-6pm. Admission to Alphawood Gallery is free and open to the public. The Gallery is conveniently located at 2401 North Halsted Street in Chicago near the CTA Fullerton 'L' stop, as well as several CTA bus routes. Limited free parking is available in an adjacent parking lot, along with more plentiful metered street parking and garage parking nearby.

For more information and updates on Then They Came for Me, visit www.alphawoodgallery.org as well as on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew and Managing Director Erica Daniels, Victory Gardens is dedicated to artistic excellence while creating a vital, contemporary American Theater that is accessible and relevant to all people through productions of challenging new plays and musicals. Victory Gardens Theater is committed to the development, production and support of new plays that has been the mission of the theater since its founding, set forth by Dennis Za?ek, Marcelle McVay, and the original founders of Victory Gardens Theater.

Victory Gardens Theater is a leader in developing and producing new theater work and cultivating an inclusive Chicago theater community. Victory Gardens' core strengths are nurturing and producing dynamic and inspiring new plays, reflecting the diversity of our city's and nation's culture through engaging diverse communities, and in partnership with Chicago Public Schools, bringing art and culture to our city's active student population.

Since its founding in 1974, the company has produced more world premieres than any other Chicago theater, a commitment recognized nationally when Victory Gardens received the 2001 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. Located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Victory Gardens Biograph Theater includes the Za?ek-McVay Theater, a state-of-the-art 259-seat mainstage and the 109-seat studio theater on the second floor, named the Richard Christiansen Theater.

Victory Gardens Ensemble Playwrights include Luis Alfaro, Philip Dawkins, Marcus Gardley, Ike Holter, Samuel D. Hunter, Naomi Iizuka, Tanya Saracho and Laura Schellhardt. Each playwright has a seven-year residency at Victory Gardens Theater.

For more information about Victory Gardens, visit www.victorygardens.org. Follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/victorygardens, Twitter @VictoryGardens and Instagram at instagram.com/victorygardenstheater.

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