PAN ASIAN REPERTORY THEATRE’s 42nd Milestone Season
Board of Trustee and Benefit Committee
invite you to attend…
2018 ART & ACTION BENEFIT DINNER
Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 6pm
At GOLDEN UNICORN Restaurant in CHINATOWN
Honoring
Co-Emcees ERIN QUILL and HENRY YUK
with presenters ZEYBA RAHMAN and SARAH RUHL
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2018 AT THE GOLDEN UNICORN 18 EAST BROADWAY, NEW YORK, NY
WWW.PANASIANREP.ORG
This fall, PAN ASIAN REPERTORY THEATRE will celebrate the start of its 42nd Milestone Season with a Benefit Dinner on Thursday, October 18th at the Golden Unicorn (18 E. Broadway at Catherine Street) in Chinatown.
Individual tickets begin at $175 and sponsorship tables begin at $2,500. To purchase tickets, call (212) 868-4030 or visit the Special Events page at www.panasianrep.org.
Tisa Chang, Artistic Producing director, says “Our ART & ACTION annual Salutes recognize Artists and Community Leaders of distinction who have made a difference with their philanthropic and artistic endeavors.“
The evening will be co-emceed by veterans Erin Quill (Avenue Q, King & I, and her blog, The Fairy Princess Diaries) and Henry Yuk (Teahouse, Yellow Fever, You Can’t Take it With You). Presenters include: Zeyba Rahman, Senior Program Officer of Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Sarah Ruhl, Playwright of The Oldest Boy, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, MacArthur Genius Awardee.
ERNEST ABUBA is a playwright, director, and veteran Broadway and film actor. Last seen in The Oldest Boy at Lincoln Center. Major roles in Broadway’s Pacific Overtures, Loose Ends, Shimada, Zoya’s Apartment, and National Tour of The King and I. He was a founding Board of Director of Pan Asian Repertory, and Chen Dance Center. With the Basement Workshop in Chinatown, and Henry Street Settlement he served as Director of the Asian American Theatre Collective Unit with Fay Chiang and Mary Lum. His TV credits include: Kung Fu, New York Undercover, Vestige of Honor, Adderly and Counterstrike. Films: Twelve Monkeys, King of New York, New York Undercover, and Call Me. His plays produced by Pan Asian Rep., include: The Dowager, Empress of China, Kwatz! The Tibetan Project, Cambodia Agonistes, Eat a Bowl of Tea, An American Story, and Dojoji: the Man Inside the Bell. Leir Rex, Papa Boy, and Nightstalker, produced by La MaMa E.T.C. Screenplays produced by Wing Lum Prdns, and CBS/PBS: Mariana Bracetti, Osceola, Arthur A. Schomburg, Lilac Chen, Asian American Railroad Strike, and Iroquois Confederacy. Recipient of an Obie, Rockefeller Playwright Residency, five NYSCA Grants for Playwriting and Directing, a Creative Arts Public Service (CAPS) Grant, and is a senior Theatre faculty member of Sarah Lawrence College.
CHERYL IKEMIYA was the senior program officer for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF). She worked together with the Arts Program staff to plan, implement, review and evaluate its strategy and programs. She was involved in developing multiple programs for the theatre community, including DDCF’s Leading National Theatre and Theatre Commissioning and Production programs; Theatre Communications Group’s New Generations and Audience (R)Evolution programs; and DDCF’s support for organizations such as the Consortium of Asian American Theatres and Artists, Latino Theatre Commons, Network of Ensemble Theatres, among others.
In Memoriam, Composer, GEORGE FISCHOFF was born in South Bend, Indiana and came to New York City as a teenager on a full scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music. After graduation with top honors from Juilliard, he decided to pursue a career as a composer. His most notable songs, “98.6” and “Lazy Day”, both charted on Billboard’s Hot 100 and continue to receive airplay all over the world. Later in life he decided to become a musical playwright and created a one man show named Gauguin/Savage Light, which ran for over 7 years at various studios in Manhattan. Mr. Fischoff is the composer of the gorgeous score to James Michener’s Sayonara, which Pan Asian produced in 2015.
The evening will benefit PAN ASIAN REPERTORY’s 42nd Milestone Season to include the New York Premiere of THE EMPEROR’S NIGHTINGALE by Damon Chua (Film Chinois), directed by Chongren Fan, a family-friendly TYA adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Nightingale,” set in 18th-century China which brings to light the youthful exploits of the future Emperor Qianlong. He befriends a magical bird who helps him learn what he must do to be King. The play employs traditional Chinese lion dance, puppetry, and a pair of tigers and pandas to tell this fun, thrilling tale. The show runs: November 25 – December 16, 2018 at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row;
And the World Premiere of THE BROTHERS PARANORMAL by Prince Gomolvilas, directed by Jeff Liu, follows two Thai-American brothers who specialize in domestic hauntings. When the siblings investigate the home of an African-American couple displaced by Hurricane Katrina, everyone’s notions of reality, fantasy, and sanity clash against the shocking truth. Pan Asian’s World Premiere of The Brothers Paranormal is the play’s kick-off before later productions in the Midwest, Northwest, and beyond. The show runs: April 27 – May 19, 2019 at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row.
About Pan Asian Repertory Theatre
PAN ASIAN REPERTORY THEATRE, celebrating its 42nd Milestone Season, is the most veteran Asian American theatre company on the East Coast. With the help of the late Ellen Stewart and core Asian American artists at La Mama ETC, Tisa Chang founded PAN ASIAN REP in 1977 with the vision that Asian American artists can equally follow their artistic aspirations to reach the zenith of American Theatre. Its mission is to provide professional theatre opportunities for Asian American artists to work under the highest standards of excellence and create new works that dignify Asian Americans and dispel stereotypes, focusing on stories of probing social justice issues with distinctive Off-Broadway Productions, Tours, National Outreach, and Community Service. Mel Gussow of The New York Times described it as “A Stage for All the World of Asian –Americans” and wrote that “Before Pan Asian Rep, Asian Americans had severely limited opportunities in the theater….” The company has nurtured thousands of artists and is a “who-is-who” of Asian American theatre history, with notable alumni/ae: June Angela, Tina Chen, Philip Gotanda, Wai Ching Ho, David Henry Hwang, Daniel Dae Kim, Lucy Liu, Ron Nakahara, Qui Nguyen, R.A. Shiomi, Lauren Yee, and Henry Yuk.
PAN ASIAN Programs are made possible, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; City Council member Margaret Chin; and major support from the Shubert, NY Community Trust, Howard Gilman, Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels, Lucille Lortel Foundations; and generous individuals.
Reply