VIDEO: Watch a Chat with James Yaegashi, Cultural/Martial Arts Consultant & Co-Fight Director of SUMO at La Jolla Playhouse

Watch James Yaegashi, Cultural/Martial Arts Consultant and Co-Fight Director of SUMO, talk about training for the battles onstage and creating the illusion of an iconic visual in this new video from La Jolla Playhouse.

Watch the interview below!

La Jolla Playhouse's world-premiere production of SUMO, by Lisa Sanaye Dring, directed by Ralph B. Peña, is a co-production with Ma-Yi Theater Company. Developed during the Playhouse’s 2021 DNA New Work Series, the play will run in the Mandell Weiss Forum September 26 – October 22. For tickets and information, please visit the link below.

The cast features Kris Bona as “Kurogo 1,” Michael Hisamoto as “Kurogo 2,” Earl T. Kim as “Shinta,” Ryan Nebreja as “Tate Gyoji,” David Shih as “Mitsuo,” Miller Tai as “Fumio,” Scott Keiji Takeda as “Akio,” Adam Tran as “Ren,” Viet Vo as “So,” and Shih-wei Wu as “Taiko Drummer.”

The creative team includes Wilson Chin, Scenic Designer; Mariko Ohigashi, Costume Designer; Paul Whitaker, Lighting Designer; Fabian Obispo, Sound Designer; Hana Kim, Projection Designer; Albert “Albee” Alvarado, Wig Designer; Shih-wei Wu, Composer; Chelsea Pace, Intimacy Staging and Fight Director; James Yaegashi, Cultural and Martial Arts Consultant; Alice Tuan, Dramaturg; tbd casting co.; Stephanie Yankwitt, CSA/Jacole Kitchen, Casting; Marie Jahelka, Stage Manager; Kira Vine, Assistant Stage Manager.

“It is always incredibly gratifying to mount a full production of a piece from our DNA New Work Series, where SUMO riveted audiences in 2021,” said Christopher Ashley, the Rich Family Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse. “Lisa Sanaye Dring brings her unique perspective and fresh voice to the Playhouse in a new work that mixes ancient ritual with the guttural ferocity of competition in the fascinating world of Sumo wrestling.”

Entrenched in an elite sumo training facility in Tokyo, six men practice, eat, love, play and ultimately fight. Akio arrives as an angry, ambitious 18-year-old with a lot to learn. Expecting validation, dominance and fame, and desperate to move up the ranks, he slams headlong into his fellow wrestlers, especially Mitsuo, the highest-ranked fighter. With sponsorship money at stake, their bodies on the line, and their futures at risk, the wrestlers struggle to carve themselves – and one another – into the men they dream of being. Written by Lisa Sanaye Dring and directed by Ma-Yi Theater Artistic Director Ralph B. Peña, SUMO was a hit as part of the Playhouse’s 2021 DNA New Work Series.

Lisa Sanaye Dring was honored as a recipient of the 2020/21 PLAY LA Stage Raw/Humanitas Prize. The Wicked One was a finalist for the Relentless Award, a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, a finalist for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and a semi-finalist for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference. Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin, a play she co-wrote with Chelsea Sutton, was nominated for eight Ovation Awards including Best Production. She is writing Kaidan Project: Alone, an augmented reality experience, with the same team, which will be coming this fall. Lisa's work has been developed/produced by The New Group, Actors Theatre of Louisville, East West Players, Circle X, Playwrights’ Arena, Rogue Artists Ensemble, The Motor Company, Theatre of NOTE and with the DCA's Reimagine Public Art Series. She recently served as the head writer on Welcome to the Blumhouse Live, an interactive film event for Blumhouse/Amazon Prime by Little Cinema. Lisa was a member of East West Players’ Playwrights Group and is a MacDowell and Yaddo Fellow.

Ralph B. Peña is an Obie Award-winning theater-maker based in New York City. Recent directing credits include Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady at The Public Theater, Indiana Rep, Long Wharf Theater, Barrington Stage, (Drama Desk, Lortel, NY Outer Critics, CT Critics Circle Nominations), Michael Lew’s Tiger Style! at South Coast Repertory, and Daniel K. Isaac’s ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME for Ma-Yi Theater Company, where he is currently Producing Artistic Director. For Ma-Yi he has directed the world premieres of Hansol Jung’s Among the Dead (NYT Critic’s Pick), Michael Lew’s microcrisis, Lloyd Suh’s The Wong Kids (Off Broadway Alliance Best Children’s Play) and Children of Vonderly (both NYT Critic’s Picks). He wrote and directed the short film Vancouver (Cannes World Film Festival, L.A. Indie Festival, NY International Film Award for Best Short and Best Director, 2023 UNIMA Citation of Excellence), and the documentary Twenty Years of Asian American Playwriting for PBS/ALL ARTS.

Founded in 1989, Ma-Yi Theater Company is a Drama Desk, Lortel, and Obie Award-winning, Off-Broadway not-for-profit organization whose primary mission is to develop and produce new and innovative plays by Asian American writers. Its numerous acclaimed productions include Mike Lew’s Teenage Dick and Bike America, Qui Nguyen's The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent G and Soul Samurai (with Vampire Cowboys), and Hansol Jung’s Among The Dead. Other productions include: Rescue Me by Michi Barall, Lloyd Suh's The Chinese Lady, Daniel K. Isaac's ONCE UPON A (korean) TIME, and Lonnie Carter’s The Romance of Magno Rubio. The Ma-Yi Writers Lab, a signature program founded in 2004, is the largest resident company of Asian-American Playwrights ever assembled. The Lab emboldens a new generation of Asian American artists to voice their experiences, while developing a steady stream of quality new works by Asian American Playwrights for Ma-Yi’s own performing repertory. New works developed at the Writers Lab have gone on to successful productions around the country, at such theaters as Victory Gardens, Laguna Playhouse, Long Wharf Theater, Woolly Mammoth and the Actors Theater of Louisville, to name a few. Ma-Yi’s productions have earned 10 Obie Awards, 5 Henry Hewes Award nominations, 2 Lucille Lortel Awards, a Drama Desk nomination for Best Play and the Special Drama Desk Award for “more than two decades of excellence and for nurturing Asian-American voices in stylistically varied and engaging theater.” Ma-Yi Theater is under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Ralph B. Peña.

La Jolla Playhouse is a place where artists and audiences come together to create what’s new and next in the American theatre, from Tony Award-winning productions, to imaginative programs for young audiences, to interactive experiences outside our theatre walls. Founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire and Mel Ferrer, the Playhouse is currently led by Tony Award winner Christopher Ashley, the Rich Family Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse, and Managing Director Debby Buchholz. The Playhouse is internationally renowned for the development of new works, including mounting 110 world premieres, commissioning 70 new works, and sending 33 productions to Broadway, garnering a total of 38 Tony Awards, as well as the 1993 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

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