May Lee-Yang

By SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY
AAP staff writer

Hmong American, May Lee-Yang, has been a household name in the Minnesotan arts community for over a decade, known as a playwright, poet, prose writer, and performance artist.

Lee-Yang was born in Ban Vinai, a refugee camp in Thailand following the Secret War in Laos. Nine months after her birth, her family resettled in St. Paul, Minnesota where she lives to this day. Her work often explores the lives of Hmong women and living in a bicultural world.

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Celebrate Chinese New Year with a nasty dragon! (Southern Theater photo)

By Mary Tan
AAP Staff Writer

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s the year of the dragon, so what better way to showcase Chinese culture by taking your family to Tiger Lion Arts’ premier performance of The Dragons are Singing Tonight.

The performance is based on a series of poems about dragons written by United States Children’s Poet Laureate Jack Prelutsky.  Composer Laurie MacGregor turned the poems into 16 songs, which feature a unique storyline about an ordinary boy, a magical girl and a very nasty dragon.

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Janaki Ranpura in Stories of the Crash.

Janaki Ranpura debuts Stories of the Crash at The Third Place Gallery, Saturday, Feb. 18. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the performance starting at 7 p.m., followed by discussion, ping pong and karaoke. Suggested Donation: $5 to $10.

“We are excited to have Janaki Ranpura debut her original work Stories of the Crash, a series of episodes about accidents,” said Wing Young Huie, curator.

A small city will be the stage for illustrations, illuminations, and projections about how we see ourselves in relation to the economic and political developments of our world. Janaki created this piece in response to time spent in October at the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City.

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Mu Performing Arts presents “A Very Asian Christmas”, written by Randy Reyes with music direction by Anita Ruth, on Sunday, Dec. 18, from 4 to 6 p.m. at Jasmine 26, located at 8 E. 26th St. Minneapolis, MN 55404.

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Mu Performing Arts is producing their 20th annual New Eyes Festival from December 1-4 and December 10, 2011 at Dreamland Arts, 677 Hamline Ave. N., St. Paul MN 55104.

The Festival will showcase six readings written by local playwrights and artists that will be featured as full productions in the 2011-2012 season. The audience will have the opportunity to provide feedback to the actors and writers during a post show discussion after each piece.

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Pangea World Theater and Intermedia Arts present the Indigenous Voices Series performance of Calling All Polar Bears, a one-woman show by Inupiaq Eskimo artist Allison Warden.

Performances will be held 7:30 p.m., Nov. 17-20 at Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave South Minneapolis, MN 55408. An artist discussion will follow the Friday and Saturday evening performances. The Opening Night Reception will be held from 5 ro 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17, followed by a special “pay-what-you-can” performance.

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By SAYMOUKDA VONGSAY
AAP staff writer

This week’s Pushing the Pen interview is with someone whom A. Magazine has dubbed the “Godfather of Asian American theater,” Roger Tang.

Tang’s involvement and love for theater has spanned three decades having produced David Henry Hwang’s Bondage, Philip Kim Gotanda’s Dream of Kitamura, Genny Lim’s Paper Angels, and Qui Nguyen’s Living Dead in Denmark, among other influential new works. Tang is the managing producer of the northwest’s longest running Asian American theater, board member at Repertory Actors Theater, editor of the Asian American Theater Revue, and the author of Third Generation Heritage and Shadowed Intent.

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Four Destinies cast members with Katie Bradley, center. (Press photo by Stephen Geffre)

Minneapolis / Saint Paul — Mu Performing Arts opens its 2011-2012 season with the world premiere of a play that takes a humorous, satirical look at the concept of fate through the experience of adoption. Four Destinies, by local playwright Katie Hae Leo, directed by Suzy Messerole, runs October 15 – 30 at Mixed Blood Theatre, 501 South 4th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55454.

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Producers are seeking talented performers of all experience levels for Playwright and Performer May Lee-Yang’s production of “Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman.”

Auditions will be held Sat. Sept. 24, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Wed. Sept. 28, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Sun Ray Library, 2105 Wilson Ave, St. Paul, MN 55119. The production is calling for four female roles and one male role in the age 16 and over. Parental consent is required for cast under the age of 18.

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The cast of The Burial at Thebes: Front: Marcela Lorca (Director) and J.D. Sttele (Composer); Back: Prentiss Standridge (Ismene), Stephen Yoakam (Creon), Sun Mee Chomet (Antigone) and Greta Oglesby (Tiresias). Photo by George Byron Griffiths.

The Guthrie Theater announced last week the complete casting for its upcoming production of The Burial at Thebes, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney’s adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, playing Sept. 24 through Nov. 6, 2011, on the McGuire Proscenium Stage, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415.

As previously announced, Sun Mee Chomet will play the fiery and heroic Antigone in the production directed by Marcela Lorca, whose critically-acclaimed production of Caroline, or Change captivated Guthrie audiences in 2009.

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