HOME / 2022-23 / AAPI GENERATIONS CONFERENCE

A CELEBRATION OF OUR FIELD’S LUMINARIES

To celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, Theater Mu's 30th anniversary season, and Asian American theater as a whole, we're bringing some of the field's luminaries to the Twin Cities in a weekend of artist talks, exhibits, our annual New Eyes play-reading festival, and more. Each event will be centered on at least one of Theater Mu’s tenets of Asian American stories, art, and social justice. We hope Asian Americans, Asians, and allies from all over can join us!

“We’re deeply honored at Mu to be celebrating our 30th anniversary, and we wanted to give tribute to the work of the artists and elders who established Asian American theater and paved the way for us,” says Mu artistic director Lily Tung Crystal.

>> Take a look at our digital program (PDF) to learn more!

Scroll down or click the links for the conference’s general information and schedule, our 2023 New Eyes Festival line-up, descriptions of our breakout sessions, more on our guests of honor, and press.

DATES & SCHEDULE

May 19-21, 2023, at Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul

MAY 19 (DAY 1)

6:30 p.m. | Doors Open

7-8:30 p.m. | Opening Plenary: The History of the Asian American Theater Movement, ft. Philip Kan Gotanda, Amy Hill, David Henry Hwang, and Rick Shiomi

The Opening Plenary is immediately followed by a celebratory reception 

MAY 20 (DAY 2)

11:30 a.m. | Doors Open
11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. | TaikoArts Midwest
1-2 p.m. | Breakout Session A

• Wattanak Dance Troupe’s Dancers and the Divine

• AAPI Theater Designers: Looking Back, Looking Forward

2:15-3:15 p.m. | Breakout Session B

• Minnesota’s Asian American Renaissance

• Yin, Yang, and Dismantling the Gender Binary

3:45-5 p.m. | Breakout Session C

• Writing, Directing, and Casting Inside and Outside the AAPI Diaspora

• Between the Water and the Cloud

5-7:30 p.m. | Dinner Break

7:30-9 p.m. | New Eyes Festival Reading No. 1, AAPI Trailblazers: Six Plays that Changed Our Lives

MAY 21 (DAY 3)

11:30 a.m. | Doors Open

noon-1:15 p.m. | New Eyes Festival Reading No. 2, Holy Shitake: A Wok Star Is Born

1:30-4 p.m. | New Eyes Festival Reading No. 3, House of Joy

4:15-5:30 p.m. | Closing Plenary with More Than a Single Story: Asian American Women Artistic Leaders, ft. Lana Salah Barkawi, Ananya Chatterjea, Lily Tung Crystal, and Anh Thu T. Pham

TICKETS

We are committed to making our events as accessible as possible. PAY AS YOU ARE pricing asks those who routinely pay $100 for a three-day conference to choose to pay that amount; it is the actual fair market value of the ticket. If an audience member needs to pay less, they can choose to pay less—as little as $50 per ticket.

LOCATION

Park Square Theatre in Saint Paul (408 Saint Peter Street, Saint Paul, MN 55102). While other addresses may pop up for Park Square, this is the one that will lead you to the doors that will be open during the conference weekend.

Ramp and street parking are available nearby, and public transportation stops are nearby from both the Metro Green Line (Central Station, 2.5 blocks away) and Metro Transit buses (routes 21, 51, 63, 65, 69, 70, 94, 191, 265, 275, 294, 353, 361, 364, and 54D). More information can be found on Park Square’s Getting Here page.

If you would like to attend only the New Eyes Festival events and none of the other Generations Conference activities, please follow this link for free RSVP registration to the readings.

AAPI TRAILBLAZERS: SIX PLAYS THAT CHANGED OUR LIVES

Saturday, May 20, at 7:30 p.m.

In this special New Eyes Festival event, six Asian American theater elders each picked one of their works that represents a watershed moment for them, even after all of their other career successes. See excerpts from Yankee Dawg You Die (Philip Kan Gotanda), Tokyobound (Amy Hill, who is also performing), Tea (Velina Hasu Houston), Yellow Face (David Henry Hwang), Yellow Fever (Rick Shiomi), and Stop Kiss (Diana Son), and take a walk through Asian American theater history.

HOLY SHITAKE: A WOK STAR IS BORN

written and performed by Katie Chin | directed by Beliza Torres Narvaez
Sunday, May 21, at noon p.m.

Filled with pathos and humor, this one-person show chronicles chef Katie Chin's true journey as a fish-out-of-water Chinese American girl growing up in Minneapolis, where she was raised by her mother, seamstress-turned-restaurateur Leeann Chin. After Leeann’s death, Katie is forced to make a choice that drastically changes her life. Now, in this emotional love letter to her mother, Katie finally learns to love herself and embrace her heritage by honoring her mother's culinary legacy.

HOUSE OF JOY

by Madhuri Shekar | directed by kt shorb
Sunday, May 21, at 1:30 p.m.

Fierce women, epic fights, and complex (and steamy) relationships make up this thriller set in the 1600s. While the kingdom’s House of Joy seems like a dazzling utopia, when a new guard joins the emperor’s army, she discovers it’s more prison than paradise.

Opening Plenary | The History of the Asian American Theater Movement: Playwright David Henry Hwang, actor Amy Hill, and Mu co-founder Rick Shiomi will be in conversation with University of Minnesota professor and Asian American theater historian Dr. Josephine Lee about how they helped create and define Asian American theater, and how Asian American representation has evolved over the decades, on stage and off.

Closing Plenary | Asian American Women Artistic Leaders: In this collaboration with More Than a Single Story, multidisciplinary artist Meghan Kreidler (actor, singer of Kiss the Tiger) will chat with trailblazers Lily Tung Crystal and Anh Thu T. Pham (Theater Mu), Ananya Chatterjea (Ananya Dance Theatre), and Lana Barkawi (Mizna) about their experiences being Asian American women leaders in the arts.

TaikoArts Midwest: Enjoy a taiko performance and a discussion on the influence, origins, relationship, and conscious uncoupling of Theater Mu and TaikoArts Midwest.

AAPI Theater Designers: Looking Back, Looking Forward: Led by Mina Kinukawa (scenic designer of The Song Poet, Cambodian Rock Band, and more), this panel will bring together several early to mid-career Asian American theater designers to reflect on their work in relation to Asian American theater and social justice.

Between the Water and Cloud—How Asian Philosophies Support Us to Stop Anti-Asian Hate: Asian Media Access will explore how to stop anti-Asian hate from Asian philosophical perspectives with the help of a panel of AAPI activists. The session will also examine the country’s current anti-Asian hate, local efforts to combat it, and the historical context of it all.

Dancers and the Divine: Wattanak Dance Troupe will introduce, educate, and showcase audiences about the ancient art form of Cambodian classical dance. In this presentation, three Wattanak dancers will briefly discuss ancient philosophies of dance, showcase two classical pieces of the Cambodian repertoire, and converse with audience members about the art form.

Minnesota's Asian American Renaissance: Jennifer Weir of TaikoArts Midwest will talk with a panel of local authors, artists, and activists about Minnesota's Asian American Renaissance, which was both an organization and a movement established in the 1990s that sparked a cultural arts revolution across the Twin Cities.

Writing, Directing, and Casting Inside and Outside the Asian American Diaspora: With such a nuanced, complicated, and intersectional Asian American diaspora, how do we write, direct, and perform each other’s stories with truth, respect, and accuracy? In this multi-generational panel, directors, actors, playwrights, dramaturgs, and cultural consultants in theater have a co-moderated discussion about perspectives, artistic goals, and issues that come up in AAPI storytelling and representation.

Yin, Yang, and Dismantling the Gender Binary: Multidisciplinary artist Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin will open the door to community-building for those who might be in the extended-gender fam and spark learning for those who might be more comfortable living and working within the gender binary, informed by interfacing with Taoist theory.

Photos

Photos by (from above left, clockwise): Jared Fessler (1, 2, 4), Wesley Mouri (3, 4), courtesy of Anh Thu T. Pham

PHILIP KAN GOTANDA (he/him) has been instrumental in bringing stories of Asians in the United States to mainstream American theater as well as to Europe and Asia. Plays include Under the Rainbow: Natalie Wood Is Dead, White Manifest or Got Rice?, and Yankee Dawg You Die. His many accolades include receiving awards from the Guggenheim, National Arts Club, Pew Charitable Trust, and Rockefeller, as well as being a member of the 2006 Japanese American Leadership Delegation. Beyond theater, Philip has also worked in mediums including film, jazz, spoken word, and dance. Before focusing on playwriting, he helped chronicle the emergent Asian American identity through song in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, and was an active part of the developing ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s cultural wave.

AMY HILL (she/her) is a character actress and comedian known for playing grandmother or motherly roles in both live action and animation. Her first major role was as Yung-Hee “Grandma” Kim on All-American Girl, where she became the breakout character of the short-lived but groundbreaking television series. Hill has had mainstay roles on other shows, including Magnum P.I., That's So Raven, Jackie Chan Adventures, Lilo & Stitch: The Series, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Enlightened, and American Dad. In film, she is best known for portraying Mrs. Kwan in The Cat in the Hat, Sue in 50 First Dates, and Mrs. Ho-Kim in Next Friday, and some of her most renown theater performances have been the one-woman shows she wrote and performed herself, including the trilogy of Tokyobound, Reunion, and Beside Myself. 

DAVID HENRY HWANG (he/him) is a playwright, screenwriter, television writer, and librettist, whose stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Soft Power, Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, a Grammy winner and two-time nominee, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Opera News called him America’s most-produced living opera librettist. From 2015-2019, he was a Writer/Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair. He is currently creating the TV series Billion Dollar Whale, slated to begin production in 2023.

RICK SHIOMI (he/him) is a playwright, director, and artistic director who has been a leader in the Asian American theater community for four decades. He has written over 20 plays, including the award-winning Yellow Fever, Mask Dance, and Rosie’s Cafe. His plays have been produced across North America and in Japan. He was a co-founder of Theater Mu in 1992 and the artistic director there for 20 years, directing many plays including Into The Woods, Yellow Face, and The New Mikado. He has also directed at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia and the Asian American Theater Company in San Francisco. He received the 2015 McKnight distinguished artist award, the 2012 Ivey award for lifetime achievement and the 2007 Sally Ordway Irvine award for Vision. He is a co-founder and co-artistic director of Full Circle Theater in the Twin Cities.

MPR - Jacob Aloi chatted with artistic director Lily Tung Crystal, playwright in residence Saymoukda Duangphouxay, and Mu co-founder Rick Shiomi about why the Generations conference matters so much to Mu and Asian American theater artists.

WCCO - Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield chatted with Katie Chin of Holy Shitake, a play she wrote and is performing during the AAPI Generations Conference that is, essentially, a love letter to her mother, late restaurateur Leeann Chin.

MinnPost - Get the scoop on David Henry Hwang—“one of the most important playwrights writing in America today”—and the rest of the AAPI Generations Conference from Sheila Regan’s weekend round-up.

SW Connector & the Monitor - Two of our local Twin Cities neighborhood papers published some of our thoughts on why the AAPI Generations Conference matters and how it came to have so many events across Asian American stories, theater, and social justice.

American Theatre - “This event is not only a chance for us to salute our elders and for them to gather and reconnect, but it’s also a space for early-career artists to introduce their work and all generations to be in conversation with each other,” Lily Tung Crystal says.

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