Artists Rep Presents a Staged Reading of Good Citizen, 3/28

Artists Repertory Theatre presents a staged reading of Portland playwright George Taylor's Good Citizen as part of their ongoing PlayLab program. This one-night performance is Monday, March 28, 7:30 p.m. on the Morrison Stage. Tickets are available at the door only for a suggested donation of $8.

On a cold night in March, a young Japanese-American walks the streets of Portland trying to get arrested. "Run along home, sonny boy," says a cop on the beat, "before you get into trouble." This is exactly what the young man wants. He flashes some papers at the police station and is thrown into the drunk tank.

The year is 1942. The young man is Minoru Yasui, and he's out to test the constitutionality of a curfew imposed on all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast.

The reading is being presented on the very date of Yasui's arrest in Portland 69 years ago.

Good Citizen dramatizes Yasui's story against a background of political and personal upheaval. The play tracks a Japanese-American family who had four days to settle their lives and pack only the belongings they could carry. They travel to the Portland livestock center, where thousands of Japanese-American men, women and children lived for months in converted stables. Then finally, the family boards a slow train to Minidoka, a tarpaper city of barbed wire and guard towers in a desolate part of Idaho. Good Citizen is a local story based on fact that resonates with contemporary citizenship and civil rights battles.

Good Citizen is a finalist for the 2011 Oregon Book Awards. It was on the short list for the 2010 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Fratti-Newman Political Play competition in New York. The play won CoHo Production's 2010 "New by Northwest" play competition in Portland, and was presented in the 2010 Fertile Ground Festival for New Work.

The reading will be followed by a post-show discussion. Audience members are encouraged to stay, ask questions and provide feedback for the further development of this work.

Good Citizen
Written by: George Taylor
Directed by: Philip Cuomo
Featuring: Ako, Michael Fisher-Welsh, Jeff Gorham, Chris Harder, Eric Hull, Dan Kremer, Jennifer Lanier, Daisuke Tsuji
Performance Date: Monday, March 28 at 7:30pm
Venue: Artists Repertory Theatre - Morrison Stage (15th and Morrison St.)
Tickets: At the door only. Suggested Donation $8;
On the web: Website, Facebook, Twitter

BIOGRAPHIES

George Taylor (playwright) has been a writer all his professional life and a theater-lover since the age of8 , when he played the spoiled prince in a third-grade production of Hot As Summer, Cold as Winter. At the age of 50, he finally put the two activities together and began seriously to write plays. Good Citizen, his third play, is a finalist for the 2011 Oregon Book Awards and is under consideration for production at ACT Seattle and Arizona Theatre Co., among other cities. In 2010, it won the New by Northwest play contest in Portland and was short-listed for the 2010 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Fratti-Newman Political Play competition in New York. His play Renaissance was a 2008 Oregon Book Awards finalist and a semifinalist for the 2006/07 Beverly Hills Theatre Guild-Julie Harris Playwright Award. His newest play, The Strange Case of the Miser at Christmas, is currently under consideration for a production at Trinity Rep in Providence, Rhode Island. Other plays include Next Train to Moscow and several works in progress. A member of the Dramatists Guild, Taylor has received playwriting fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission and Oregon Literary Arts. He lives in Beaverton with his wife, Edie.

Philip Cuomo (director) is a member of the core company at Third Rail Repertory Theatre and Associate Director of Portland Actors Conservatory, where he teaches Mask, Movement, Improvisation and Voice. At PAC, Philip has directed Comedy of Errors, The Blue Room, We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, Kimberly Akimbo, and The Mail Order Bride. Elsewhere in Portland, Philip has directed for Oregon Repertory Theatre, Chemeketa Community College and Miracle Theatre (Drammy Award, La Carpa Calavera). He has served as movement coach and choreographer for Third Rail Repertory Theatre, Hand2Mouth and Artists Repertory Theatre with Allen Nause and William Hurt. As an actor he has appeared at Lincoln Center, The Hartford Stage, The Civic Theatre of Central Florida, Artists Repertory Theatre, Imago Theatre and Third Rail. In New York City, Philip taught at The Sonia Moore Studio of Theatre in New York City, Circus Minimus and the Bronx Arts Ensemble. Philip has adapted and directed shows for The Orange County Historical Museum and The Tampa Historical Society. He received a Bachelor of Arts from State College of New York at Geneseo, a certificate from The Sonia Moore Studio of Theatre. He received his clown training from the master clown David Shiner.

Artists Rep's Commitment to New Work
Since its founding in 1982, Artists Rep has been committed to bringing never-before-seen plays to Portland audiences. Over the years, we are proud to have produced more new work than any other company in Portland. In addition to introducing local audiences to the newest and hottest plays from the national scene through Pacific Northwest, Oregon, and Portland Premieres, Artists Rep also cultivates brand new work with World Premiere productions and workshop productions.

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