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Conrad Yama
Conrad Yama (born Kiyoshi Conrad Hamanaka; October 8, 1919 – March 10, 2010), was an American theatre, film, and television actor. Early life Born and raised in Fresno, California, Hamanaka attended Fresno State after high school, studying speech and psychology. As a Nisei (2nd generation Japanese-American), Hamanaka was interned in Jerome, Arkansas during World War II due to Executive Order 9066, where he worked on camp newspapers. As a conscientious objector, Yama was also labeled a No-No Boy. While in the camp, one of his children caught pneumonia, and another contracted tuberculosis. Career Upon his release, Hamanaka moved to Chicago, where, despite being accepted to study psychology at the University of Chicago, Hamanaka took the stage name Conrad Yama, and following a period of training at the Goodman Theatre, pursued an acting career. Some of Yama's first major credits were television appearances in Asian specific roles. Following tours of '' Teahouse of the August Moo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fresno, California
Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, making it the fifth-most populous city in California, the most populous inland city in California, and the 34th-most populous city in the nation. The Metro population of Fresno is 1,008,654 as of 2022. Named for the abundant ash trees lining the San Joaquin River, Fresno was founded in 1872 as a railway station of the Central Pacific Railroad before it was incorporated in 1885. It has since become an economic hub of Fresno County and the San Joaquin Valley, with much of the surrounding areas in the Metropolitan Fresno region predominantly tied to large-scale agricultural production. Fresno is near the geographic center of California, approximately north of Los Angeles, south of the state capital, Sacramento, and southeast of San Franc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodgers And Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s initiated what is considered the "golden age" of musical theater. Gordon, John Steele''Oklahoma'!'. Retrieved June 13, 2010 Five of their Broadway shows, ''Oklahoma!'', '' Carousel'', '' South Pacific'', ''The King and I'' and ''The Sound of Music'', were outstanding successes, as was the television broadcast of ''Cinderella'' (1957). Of the other four shows that the team produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, ''Flower Drum Song'' was well-received, and none was an outright flop. Most of their shows have received frequent revivals around the world, both professional and amateur. Among the many accolades their shows (and film versions) garnered were thirty-four Tony Awards, fifteen Academ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Takei
George Takei (; ja, ジョージ・タケイ; born Hosato Takei (武井 穂郷), April 20, 1937) is an American actor, author and activist known for his role as Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the fictional starship USS ''Enterprise'' in the television series ''Star Trek'' and subsequent films. Takei was born to Japanese American parents, with whom he lived in U.S.-run internment camps during World War II. He began pursuing acting in college, which led in 1965 to the role of Sulu, to which he returned periodically into the 1990s. Upon coming out as gay in 2005, he became a prominent proponent of LGBT rights and active in state and local politics. He has been a vocal advocate of the rights of immigrants, in part through his work on the 2012 Broadway show ''Allegiance'', about the internment experience. Although Takei was born and raised in California, he spoke both English and Japanese growing up and remains fluent in both languages. He has won several awards and accolades for his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Performances
''Great Performances'' is a television anthology series dedicated to the performing arts; the banner has been used to televise theatrical performances such as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, concerts, as well as occasional documentaries. It is produced by the PBS member station WNET in New York City (originally in conjunction with KQED/San Francisco, WTTW/Chicago, Maryland Public Television, South Carolina ETV and KERA-TV/ Dallas/Fort Worth). The series is the longest-running performing arts anthology on television and has won 29 Primetime Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards and an Image Award, with nods from the Directors Guild of America and the Cinema Audio Society. History ''Great Performances predecessor, ''New York Playhouse'', premiered on October 7, 1972, with a production of ''Antigone''. In 1973, Exxon and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provided grants to create ''Theater in America'', which reran the ''New York Playhouse'' and some ''NET Playhouse'' product ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American Place Theatre
The American Place Theatre was founded in 1963 by Wynn Handman, Sidney Lanier, and Michael Tolan at St. Clement's Church, 423 West 46th Street in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, and was incorporated as a not-for-profit theatre in that year. Tennessee Williams and Myrna Loy were two of the original board members. Achievements The first full production at this off-Broadway theatre was ''The Old Glory'', a trilogy of three one-acts by the poet Robert Lowell, produced in November 1964. The play would go on to win five Obie Awards the following year, including "Best American Play." In addition to producing Robert Lowell's first play, The American Place Theatre has produced and developed the first plays of outstanding writers from other literary forms including Donald Barthelme, Robert Coover, Paul Goodman, H. L. Mencken, Joyce Carol Oates, S. J. Perelman, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, May Swenson, and Robert Penn Warren. Significant playwrights have been nurtured and, in many cases, initia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Year Of The Dragon (play)
''The Year of the Dragon'' is a play written by Chinese American playwright Frank Chin. It is one of the first plays by an Asian American playwright to be produced on a mainstream New York stage. It premiered in 1974 at the American Place Theatre, and starred Randall Duk Kim, who had played the lead in Chin's earlier play, '' The Chickencoop Chinaman''. The rest of the cast included Pat Suzuki, Tina Chen, Conrad Yama, Lilah Kan, Doug Higgins, and Keenan Shimizu. The play portrays a Chinese American family in Chinatown, San Francisco during Chinese New Year. Chin wrote the play as a critique of the racism in American society, and the play satirizes "American tourists who eroticize, objectify, and commodify Chinatown and its residents." A television production of the play was filmed by PBS for ''Great Performances'' in 1975 with George Takei replacing Kim as Fred, after Kim declined the television adaptation for artistic reasons, feeling that there would not be an adequate amoun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Chin
Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940) is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre. Life and career Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940; until the age of six, he remained under the care of a retired vaudeville couple in Placerville, California. At that time, his mother brought him back to the San Francisco Bay Area and thereafter Chin grew up in Oakland Chinatown. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965. According to Chin, who had returned from a sabbatical working as the first Chinese brakeman for the Southern Pacific railroad, he intimidated a dean into graduating him with a bachelor's degree in English: " said'I want a decision by Friday' and he said, 'Well, I'm a very busy man,' and I said, 'You're a working stiff like me - you have a decision Friday and I don't care what it is. Either I've graduated or I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chelsea Theater Center
The Chelsea Theater Center was a not-for-profit theater company founded in 1965 by Robert Kalfin, a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. It opened its doors in a church in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, then moved to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1968, where it was in residence for ten years. History Kalfin, the artistic producer, wanted to do the kind of work that had marked commercial off-Broadway in its prime but which, as a result of escalating production costs, could no longer realize a profit. By 1969, he was working with two new partners, also Yale graduates, Michael David, executive producer, and Burl Hash, production manager. They made it possible for him to realize the work he envisioned. In the 1970s, the Chelsea produced plays that were unfamiliar to most spectators, even to many theater professionals. These included unusual European classics, new plays, and major works by well-known playwrights that were too complex and expensive for most non-profit theater ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Adam Greenfield and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, Playwrights Horizons encourages the new work of veteran writers while nurturing an emerging generation of theater artists. Writers are supported through every stage of their growth with a series of development programs: script and score evaluations, commissions, readings, musical theater workshops, Studio and Mainstage productions. History Playwrights Horizons was founded in 1971 at the Clark Center Y by Robert Moss, before moving to 42nd Street in 1977 where it was one of the original theaters that started Theater Row by converting adult entertainment venues into off Broadway theaters. The current building was built on the site of a former burlesque, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Public Theatre
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Life'', Da Capo Press, March 1, 1996. Led by JoAnne Akalaitis from 1991 to 1993 and by George C. Wolfe from 1993 to 2004, it is currently led by Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham. The venue opened in 1967, with the world-premiere production of the musical '' Hair'' as its first show. The Public is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in Lower Manhattan. The building holds five theater spaces and Joe's Pub, a cabaret-style venue used for new work, musical performances, spoken-word artists, and soloists. The Public also operates the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where it presents Shakespeare in the Park. New York natives and visitors alike have been enjoying free Sha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plenty (play)
''Plenty'' is a play by David Hare, first performed in 1978, about British post-war disillusion. Productions The inspiration for ''Plenty'' came from the fact that 75 per cent of the women engaged in wartime SOE operations divorced in the immediate post-war years; the title is derived from the idea that the post-war era would be a time of "plenty", which proved untrue for most of England. Directed by the playwright, ''Plenty'' premiered in the Lyttelton Theatre on London's South Bank on 7 April 1978, featuring Kate Nelligan as Susan, the protagonist, and Stephen Moore as Raymond. It was nominated for the Olivier Award as ''Play of the Year'' and Nelligan as ''Best Actress in a New Play'', losing to '' Whose Life is it Anyway?'' and Joan Plowright in ''Filumena''. The play premiered Off-Broadway on 21 October 1982, at the Public Theater, where it ran for 45 performances. Directed by Hare, Nelligan reprised the role of Susan, supported by Kelsey Grammer and Dominic Chianese. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacific Overtures
''Pacific Overtures'' is a Musical theater, musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by John Weidman, with "additional material by" Hugh Wheeler. Set in 19th-century Japan, it tells the story of the country's westernization starting in 1853, when American ships forcibly opened it to the rest of the world. The story is told from the point of view of the Japanese, and focuses in particular on the lives of two friends who are caught in the change. Sondheim wrote the score in a quasi-Japanese style of parallel 4ths and no leading-tone. He did not use the pentatonic scale; the 4th degree of the major scale is represented from the opening number through the finale, as Sondheim found just five pitches too limiting. The music contrasts Japanese contemplation ("There Is No Other Way") with Western ingenuousness ("Please Hello") while over the course of the 127 years, Western harmonies, tonality and even lyrics are infused into the score. The score is generally conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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