East West Players to Launch 56th Anniversary Season, 'Here. Us. Now!'

East West Players, the nation's longest running producer of Asian American work, will launch its 56th season 'Here. Us. Now!'. Shows presented throughout 2022 feature the long awaited EWP premiere of Stephen Sondheim's darkly comic Tony-Award winning musical Assassins, Interstate, Melissa Li and Kit Yan's Asian-American pop-rock poetry musical, the world premiere of Inda Craig-Galván's The Great Jheri Curl Debate, and Prince Gomolvilas' The Brothers Paranormal. All productions will be performed live at the David Henry Hwang Theater.

'We cannot wait to reopen our doors and welcome our friends and family back to the David Henry Hwang Theater. What will be waiting for them is a season full of resilience, joy, laughter, community and lots of hair," says East West Players' Producing Artistic Director Snehal Desai. "It is a season that has us returning back to the stage with strength, pride and solidarity. A season brimming with powerful voices that demand to be heard,".

Opening February 17, 2022, East West Players presents Assassins. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and book by John Weidman, Assassins will be directed by East West Players' Producing Artistic Director Snehal Desai, with musical direction by Marc Macalintal and choreography by Jasmine Rafael and Preston Mui. A darkly comic Tony-award winner that examines the motives of the nine notorious Americans who took their shot at the President of the United States, this wickedly subversive spectacle explores the national fixation on celebrity and its violent intersection with the American dream. Assassins is the twelfth Sondheim musical mounted by East West Players in its fifty-six year history of producing theatre in Los Angeles.

The cast of Assassins is headlined by Gedde Watanabe (Original Broadway Cast of Pacific Overtures, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and La Cage Aux Folles at East West Players) as Charles Guiteau, Joan Almedilla (Broadway national tour of The King And I, Donna Sheridan in East West Players' Mamma Mia!) as Sara Jane Moore, and Adam Kaokept, making his East West Players debut, (Broadway: Miss Saigon Revival and Disney's Aladdin Original Cast) as The Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald.

The creative team includes: Stephanie Lim (Dramaturg), David Murakami (Projections Designer), Stephanie Nguyen (Costume Designer), Anna Robinson (Scenic Designer), Wesley Charles Chew (Lighting Designer), Christian Lee and Cricket Myers (Sound Designers), Glenn Michael Baker (Property Designer), and Brandon Hong Cheng (Stage Manager).

EWP's 56th season continues with the new musical Interstate opening June 2, 2022. Interstate, with music by Melissa Li and book and lyrics by Melissa Li and Kit Yan and direction by Jesca Prudencio, is an Asian-American pop-rock poetry musical that follows Dash, a transgender spoken word performer who becomes internet-famous along with his best friend Adrian, a lesbian singer-songwriter.

Fueled by the allure of fame and a desire to connect with their community, Dash and Adrian embark on a road trip across America for their first national tour. Their fiercely political and deeply personal music touches Henry, a transgender teenage boy living in small-town middle America, and he finds solace in their art as he struggles with his own identity and family. After blogging about the band and documenting his own gender journey, he decides to set out on a quest to meet his heroes in person, hoping to find answers to his own struggles.

Interstate is a touching story about how two transgender people at different stages of their journey navigate love, family, masculinity, and finding a community in the era of social media. Interstate is based on the true story of Good Asian Drivers, a queer band active from 2008-2010.

Inda Craig-Galván's The Great Jheri Curl Debate, which was developed in the East West Players Writers Group and was a finalist for the 44th annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival, will open on September 15, 2022.

Veralynn Jackson, the protagonist of The Great Jheri Curl Debate, knows hair, she knows her neighborhood, and she also knows that the invention of the Jheri Curl marks the end of the world. When she takes a job in Mr. Kim's Korean-owned Black beauty supply store and the posters start talking to her, Veralynn might finally come to know her true calling.

Closing out the season, Prince Gomolvilas' The Brothers Paranormal, directed by Jeff Liu, will open on November 17, 2022. The Brothers Paranormal follows two Thai brothers who launch a business to investigate paranormal activities. When they investigate the home of an African-American couple, who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, their notions of reality, fantasy, and sanity clash against the shocking truth. This play highlights how present-day humanity deals with grief and the beauty of compassion that is revealed even in our darkest hours.

Additionally, the 56th Season marks the relaunch of EWP's Theatre for Youth in-person performances, which bring a new, original play about historic Asian Americans to young audiences across Los Angeles. This year EWP will premiere a new work by Rosie Narasaki that brings to life the story of civil rights leader Yuri Kochiyama. Told through the prism of her unlikely friendship with Malcolm X, the play follows Kochiyama's life from her days in the Japanese American internment camps to her radical activism that followed through the decades.

Season 56 memberships are available now. Each main stage show will include one Pay-What-You-Can night at the first Monday performance. More information on ticketing and audience safety protocols is available at www.eastwestplayers.org, or by contacting the EWP Box Office at boxoffice@eastwestplayers.org.

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