PHILIP KAN GOTANDA   (1951 - )


Philip Kan Gotanda
   Nationality:
USA
   Literary Agent: *:
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Plays by Philip Kan Gotanda

PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
After The War
1st Produced:
2007
Company:
American Conservatory Theater
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
5
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Post World War II, San Francisco JapanTown. American Jazz; No-No Boys; African Americans, Japanese Americans, Russian Jews, poor Whites from Oklahoma mix it up.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Avocado Kid or Zen and the Art of Guacamole
1st Produced:
-
-
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Musical
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: Music by Philip Kan Gotanda; lyrics by Philip Kan Gotanda; book by Philip Kan Gotanda
Synopsis: -
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Ballad Of Yachiyo
1st Produced:
1995
Company:
Berkeley Repertory Theater
1st Published:
American Theatre Magazine, NY - February
1996
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
drama
Historical
Parts:
Male
4
Female
4
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: The time is 1919, a period of limited prosperity for Japanese families toiling in the sugar cane fields of the Hawaiian islands. Yachiyo, a young peasant girl, is destined for life in the fields and for a marriage to Willie, a lowly worker. Cashing in on an old family dept, she is sent by her parents to board with a pottery artist, Hiro Takamura and his wife, on a distant island where she will learn proper Japanese manners and traditions. The education that she receives is more about life's cruelties than its civilities. Hiro, consumed by bitterness over his father's success, is a perfectionist potter stuck in a loveless marriage. While his wife waits for him to learn to love her, she educates Yachiyo on how to ascend the social ladder and in doing so becomes her confidant. Hiro is inspired by the young visitor and his pottery flourishes as Okusan begins to become suspicious of her husband and Yachiyo's growing fascination with him. The story unfolds with Yachiyo's discovery of life's beauties, her sexual awa
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Bullet Headed Birds
1st Produced:
New York
1981
Company:
Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Day Standing On Its Head
1st Produced:
1994
Company:
Manhattan Theater Club
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1998
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
Fantasy-Drama
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
5
Female
3
Parts Other:
flexible casting
Notes: -
Synopsis: Harry Kitamura, a successful law professor, begins to find his life unraveling when he starts researching a paper about his involvement in a campus strike in the early 1970s. Odd characters with violent and overt sexual impulses begin to invade his night dreams, eventually spilling over into his waking life. Soon he is unable to distinguish between the two worlds, sending him on an uncontrollable ride of obsession and ultimate revelation. The 1960s, the Red Guard, Eric Clapton and a Japanese Peggy Lee impersonator all make their presences known in this tale of a heart lost and a heart found.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Dream Of Kitamura, The
1st Produced:
New York
1983
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "West Coast Plays 15/16", San Francisco
1983
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Fish Head Soup
1st Produced:
BRT, Berkeley, Cal.
1989
Company:
Berkeley Repertory Theater
1st Published:
in Fish Head Soup and other plays, Theatre Communications Group, NY
1995
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Violent family Drama. And yet with hint of comedy. Mat returns home after faking his death. Dream is to make an independent film at any expense.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Fist of Roses, A
1st Produced:
Campo Santo; San Francisco
2003
Company:
Campo Santo+Intersection for the Arts.
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
5
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: About male violence against Women.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Floating Weeds
1st Produced:
Campo Santo; San Francisco
2003
Company:
Campo Santo+Intersection for the Arts.
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Down and out, decide rescuing lost dogs is the best way to make money.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
In the Dominion of Night
1st Produced:
EWP in Los Angeles
1994
Company:
East West Players
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
Spoken word with live music, full length
-
Parts:
Male
1
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Full length spoken word play performed by the playwright himself with his band, THE NEW ORIENTALS, a jazz combo made up of LA jazz musicians: Dan Kuramoto, Danny Yamamoto; Taiji Miyagawa.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Manzanar: An American Story
1st Produced:
Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles
2005
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
Symphonic with spoken text
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Maestro Kent Nagano original Symphonic piece with spoken text. Mr. Gotanda wrote the text and directed.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Sisters Matsumoto
1st Produced:
2000
Company:
-
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: 3 Sisters return to their California Farm after the end of World War II. Before the war, the Matsumoto sisters were wealthy and mingled with upper crust white society. Now, with no money to protect them from anti-Japanese sentiment, the sisters must figure out how to rebuild their lives without the prior privilege.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Song For A Nisei Fisherman, A
1st Produced:
Los Angeles
1982
Company:
-
1st Published:
in Fish Head Soup and other plays, Theatre Communications Group, NY
1995
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
-
Parts:
Male
-
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis:
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Under The Rainbow
1st Produced:
2005
Company:
Asian American Theater Company
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
Satire-Drama
One Act
Parts:
Male
1
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Two One Acts: Natalie Wood Is Dead; White Manifesto.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Wash, The
1st Produced:
Los Angeles
1985
Company:
-
1st Published:
in "Between Worlds", Theatre Communications Group, New York
1990
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
5
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Nobu Matsumoto has separated from his wife Masi at her request, though both of them are in their sixties. Nobu's newfound bachelor life is regularly interrupted by Masi who comes by to pick up and drop off Nobu's weekly laundry as part of the duties she still feels a Japanese wife owes to her husband. Their two daughters have opposing feelings about the breakup; Marsha, the more traditional of the daughters, wants to reunite her parents, but not even Nobu and Masi's nostalgia for their courtship in a World War II Japanese-American internment camp can bring them back together again. The other daughter, Judy, who's been estranged from her father since marrying a black American, has been supportive of her mother's attempt at freedom. It is not until Masi tentatively begins a relationship with Sadao, a widower, that the severity of Nobu's traditional values reveals itself; he is inconsolable, obstinate and reclusive, leaving Kiyoko, a widowed restaurant owner who has fallen in love with him, unable to break down
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Wind Cries Mary, The
1st Produced:
San Jose, California
2002
Company:
San Jose Repertory Theater
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
2003
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
3
Female
2
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Loosely based on Hedda Gabler, THE WIND CRIES MARY is set on a college campus in the late '60s. Amidst the turbulent anti-war demonstrations and beginnings of Asian-American identity politics, we follow an extraordinary young woman, Eiko Hanabi, through the course of several days' events which in the end will alter her life forever. Eiko finds herself caught between life choices made during a different political and racial climate, and a newer emergent model that promises more freedom and choice. Eiko is a woman caught on the cusp of a world changing from Oriental to Asian American.
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Yankee Dawg, You Die
1st Produced:
Berkeley Repertory Theater, San Francisco
1986
Company:
Berkeley Repertory Theater
1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY
1989
To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click, otherwise
(below) are AbeBooks for secondhand & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Genre:
Comedy-Drama
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
2
Female
-
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Bradley Yamashita is one of the new breed of Asian-American actors. Highly political and outspoken, he will only take on acting roles that are dignified and unstereotypic. He has recently starred in a small independent film that is the darling of the art crowd, and he arrives in Hollywood full of himself and his politics. Vincent Chang is a survivor. He cut his teeth on the old "Chop Suey" circuit as a hoofer and went on to star in feature films, even garnering an Oscar nomination in the 1950s. Now, though still regal and debonair, Vincent is forced into taking often stereotypic and undignified roles. Through a series of quick-moving scenes, we follow the two men as they meet, form a tenuous friendship and together do battle amidst the often humorous and at times ruthless backdrop of the Hollywood film world. While maintaining the portrayal of integrity as all important, Bradley must face the reality of the same lack of work for Asian actors as Vincent faced in the early days of film. Vincent also teaches Bra
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PHILIP KAN GOTANDA
Yohen
1st Produced:
West End Theatre, NY
2006
Company:
Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
1st Published:
-
-
To Buy This Play:
I don't think the play has been published but you could try abebooks.com
or the playwright direct where their email is shown at the top of the page
Genre:
-
Play/Drama
Parts:
Male
1
Female
1
Parts Other:
-
Notes: -
Synopsis: Set in California in 1986, Yohen is about James, an African American ex-GI, and Sumi, his Japanese wife. After 30 years of marriage, Sumi re-evaluates the relationship and separates from James. Attempting to reconnect, the couple must face their differences and look back before they can move ahead. Yohen is a Japanese pottery term that refers to irregular color mixing which takes place in the kiln. The results are as unpredictable as the evolution of a marriage. In the end, it is up to the viewer to decide whether or not the creation has been made more beautiful by the imperfection.
Press Release
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