Rick Shiomi News

ANTIGONE is an ancient Greek play by Sophokles that depicts Antigone's heroic public defiance of King Kreon's tyrannical rule. This ever relevant play explores themes of love, family, loyalty, and civil disobedience.

ANTIGONE is an ancient Greek play by Sophokles that depicts Antigone's heroic public defiance of King Kreon's tyrannical rule. This ever relevant play explores themes of love, family, loyalty, and civil disobedience.

To celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, Theater Mu's 30th anniversary season, and Asian American theater as a whole, we're bringing some of the field's luminaries to the Twin Cities in a weekend of artist talks, exhibits, our annual New Eyes play-reading festival, and more. Each event will be centered on at least one of Theater Mu’s tenets of Asian American stories, art, and social justice.

To commemorate Asian Heritage Month in May, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre will wrap up its 46th milestone season with two noteworthy events.

What did our critic think of THE SONG POET at Minnesota Opera? The first Hmong story adapted for the operatic stage, St. Paul writer Kao Kalia Yang's memoir The Song Poet comes to life in this world premiere. It tells the story of Yang's family and her song poet father as war drives them from the mountains of Laos into a Thai refugee camp and ultimately on to the challenging world of life as a refugee. With his poetry, Kalia's father inspires hope in his family, polishing their reality so that they might shine.

The first Hmong story adapted for the operatic stage, St. Paul writer Kao Kalia Yang's memoir The Song Poet comes to life in this world premiere. It tells the story of Yang's family and her song poet father as war drives them from the mountains of Laos into a Thai refugee camp and ultimately on to the challenging world of life as a refugee. With his poetry, Kalia's father inspires hope in his family, polishing their reality so that they might shine.

The National Theatre Conference is honoring new and long-time organizations and individuals who affect and inspire the field, and has named the recipients of its 2022 awards.

To celebrate 30 years of Theater Mu, its 2022/23 season—dubbed the Pearl Anniversary season—will feature four world premieres and a conference honoring Asian American theater luminaries. 

Centerstage is pleased to present Yellow Fever by Rick Shiomi, a noir-genre detective thriller set in the Pacific Northwest, and told through the lens of the Japanese and Chinese immigrant communities in the 1970s. The shadows of the internment camps linger over a vibrant community as it fights to establish itself just a few decades after losing so much. In the midst of it all is detective Sam Shikaze, a nisei private eye...and he’s got a story to tell.

The Firehall Arts Centre closes its 2021-2022 Reunion Season with the presentation of its production, Yellow Fever, from Saturday, May 28 to Sunday, June 12.

​​​​​​​Amidst the extraordinary landscape of Chile's Atacama desert, two strangers search for the long-lost remains of their children, 'disappeared' victims of the brutal Pinochet regime. In their quest for closure, they traverse Chile's history to examine the opposing views and actions that tore families and countries apart. Their mythic journey explores the transformative possibilities that can lead from transgression to remorse, reparation, forgiveness, and redemption.

Theater Mu is the second-largest Asian American Theatre in the nation. Mu (pronounced MOO) is the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese character for the shaman/artist/warrior who connects the heavens and the earth through the tree of life.

To mark Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this May, Theater Mu announced NEW EYES FESTIVAL: UN(SCENE) as part of the current 2020-2021 season. Theater Mu's longest-running tradition, the New Eyes Festival, has become a much-anticipated annual series of staged readings of new works from Asian American playwrights.

Minnesota’s Theater Mu's first mainstage production since the pandemic lockdown - playwright Susan Soon He Stanton's TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY  - will be live broadcasted February 5 through February 14, 2021, with video-on-demand available February 15 through February 21, 2021. In support of Theatre Mu, East West Players is including BIRTHDAY in its 55th anniversary season as a part of an East West Passport membership.

Theater M­u presents the TwentyPho Hour PlayFest, its first ever play festival featuring thirty theater artists creating brand new plays in under 24 hours.

Minneapolis and Saint Paul theatre artists joined James A. Rocco to create HOLD YOUR HAND TWIN CITIES, proving #NothingCanStopLiveTheatre

Actress Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was incredibly prolific, appearing in silent movies, 'talkies,' television, plays and vaudeville. She was also stifled by a close-minded industry which largely limited the Chinese American actress to stereotyped roles, and the Hays code which kept her out of romantic leads.

Actress Anna May Wong (1905-1961) was incredibly prolific, appearing in silent movies, 'talkies,' television, plays and vaudeville. She was also stifled by a close-minded industry which largely limited the Chinese American actress to stereotyped roles, and the Hays code which kept her out of romantic leads.

Why would you run from the "greatest country in the world"? InterAct Theatre Company presents Mia Chung's expressionistic and intensely relevant story of two sisters' perilous journey as they flee oppression in North Korea. You for Me for You is a harrowing, poetic, and satirical tale that creates metaphorical context for larger questions of immigration, assimilation, and human connection, casting a light on the culture clash between American values and North Korea's notoriously inscrutable regime.