PLAYWRIGHT PHILIP GOTANDA TO DISCUSS FOUR-PLAY
ANTHOLOGY ‘NO MORE CHERRY BLOSSOMS’ AT PROGRAM
SET FOR JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM MARCH 26

LOS ANGELES.—Award-winning playwright Philip Kan Gotanda will discuss his almost three decades of work with a special focus on four plays that make up the recently published anthology, No More Cherry Blossoms: Sisters Matsumoto and Other Plays in a special public program set for Sunday, March 26, beginning at 2 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.

Gotanda, who has been recognized for his work by foundations and agencies such as the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, PEW Charitable Trust and TCG-NEA and was presented the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Award, will provide insight into the four plays in his anthology, all which primarily deal with Japanese American women and their challenges and choices. The four plays are Sisters Matsumoto, The Wind Cries Mary, Ballad of Yachiyo, and Under The Rainbow. Each play is set in a different decade of the 20th Century and, taken as a whole, presents multiple generations of Nikkei women.

Sisters Matsumoto depicts the challenge for three sisters returning from the World War II concentration camps to their homes in Stockton and their struggle to reestablish their pre-war lives. The Wind Cries Mary is set in San Francisco in 1968, just as the Asian American Movement is erupting on college campuses. Ballad of Yachiyo is the sexual coming of age look at a young Japanese immigrant woman in 1919 Hawai`i. Under The Rainbow is the combining of two one-act plays: Natalie Wood Is Dead, which reveals the tension between a mother and daughter, both television actresses, whose career choices are limited; and, White Manifesto and Other Tales of Self-Entitlement, or, Got Rice? which deals with a white male’s preference for Asian American women.

Gotanda’s plays have been performed all over the country and internationally. Ballad of Yachiyo was produced at London’s Gate Theatre and Sisters Matsumoto was translated into Japanese and performed at the Mingei Theatre in Tokyo. Last year, Gotanda collaborated with Maestro Kent Nagano on the orchestral work with spoken text, Manzanar: An American Story.

Gotanda began working in the theater with his first work, The Avocado Kid or Zen in the Art of Guacamole, which was a musical. Over his career, he developed a series of plays, The Wash, Fish Head Soup and A Song for a Nisei Fisherman, which constitute his family trilogy. More recently, Gotanda has begun to create independent films, producing “The Kiss”, “Drinking Tea”, and “Life Tastes Good”.

This public program was organized in recognition of Women’s History Month. It will include a staged reading from one of the four plays and a book signing will follow. The program is free to National Museum members or with regular admission. No More Cherry Blossoms is available at the Museum Store or through its online outlet at www.janmstore.com. For more information on the program or to make reservations, call the Japanese American National Museum at (213) 625-0414. Or go to www.janm.org.