AATC Fall 2000 Training

To continue fostering new talent in Asian Pacific Islander American theater, Asian American Theater Company proudly announces its courses for its Fall 2000 series:

The Hard 8 of Creativity:

Four Week Directing Intensive with Ellen Sebastian Chang

All lives are founded and organized on basic principals of survival, problem solving and the evolution of our unique self or creativity. This class will be designed to help each artist explore his/her highest level of creativity as a beginning director. Each artist should bring to class a script or treatment (written idea) that will be used to learn the basics of directing: analysis, casting, design and creating your stage signature - finding you directorial voice.

Ellen Sebastian Chang is a director, writer and creative consultant. She was co-founder and artistic director of LIFE ON THE WATER, a nationally and internationally known presenting and producing organization at San Francisco&Mac226;s Fort Mason Center from 1986 through 1995. She is a directing and producing consultant with the Zellerbach Family Fund. In June of 2000 Ms. Chang staged the premier of Jon Jang and James Newton's tributary to Paul Robeson and Langang called When Sorrow Turns to Joy. She directed Close Encounters of the Third World, a collaboration between Latina Theater Lab, 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, Asian American Theater Company and Culture Clash; Don't You Ever Call Me Anything But Mother by John O&Mac226;Keefe, performed by Helen Shumaker.

In 1999 Ms. Chang directed the premier of Walkin-Talkin Bill Hawkins by William Allen Taylor for the stage and then produced for LOST and FOUND Sound, The Millennium Radio Project for NPR. Ms Chang is a playwright in residency at the School for the Arts and Castlemont High School, part of the Magic Theater's Young California Writers Program. Her radio play G-O-to the D (based upon the stage production The Black Girl In Search Of God; In East Oakland) was purchased by National Public Radio for broadcast in the Bay Area, LA and Boston. In 1988 her work based upon the life and work of Zora Neal Hurston called The Sanctified Church premiered in San Francisco and was later rewritten as a smaller touring production called Sanctified, with productions in LA, Washington DC, Miami and Texas. She has collaborated, directed and consulted with solo performers Awela Makeba, Holly Hughes, Whoopi Goldberg, Anne Galjour, Leonard Pitt, Sean San Jose and Charlie Varron.

Monday October 9

Monday October 16

Monday October 23

Monday October 30

7PM-10PM

Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California

1840 Sutter Street, Conference Room 1

San Francisco, CA 94115-3220

$120.00

$100.00 for members of AATC

ACTING with Rena Owen

Any great performance, captured on celluloid, or seen on stage, does not begin there, that is where it ends. The bulk of the work happens in all the steps an Actor takes before the captured moments of performance.

This workshop explores the journey, from script to screen or stage. Understanding the differences between acting on Stage, and acting in front of the Camera. Although the mechanics of acting for both mediums remains the same, there are many obvious and more subtle elements the actor must adjust.

Once the Actor understands their medium, it is then their job to understand their vehicle: the Script. Understanding and honoring your vehicle, what the writers is saying, and your function as an Actor, in helping to tell the story. I look at script and scene breakdowns, and developing your character from the blueprint of your vehicle.

A character's life does not start at the beginning of a play or a film. Creating the character you will play, is a very exciting and extensive process. I share the many devices I use for creating a real living person on screen or stage. And finally, the execution of your performance. I share the techniques, and ingredients, of what makes for vital, truthful, believable, fresh performances.

This workshop is not only of benefit to Actors, but also Writers and Directors. I believe the line betwen these disciplines is merged. Creating works of art, for screen or stage, is ultimately a process of creative collaboration. As we deal in the human condition, and our instruments are ourselves, I believe that what we learn professionally, also benefits us personally. What speaks for an Artist, on screen or stage, is who you are as a person.

Owen is one of New Zealand&Mac226;s most successful actors since her performance as Beth in Once Were Warriors. The role earned her Best Actress awards at the San Diego, Montreal and Oporto Film Festivals, while at home she received the 1995 Benny Award for Excellence and Contribution to the Industry as well as the Toastmasters Award for Communicator of the Year.

She began her acting career in London in 1984 where she worked in British Theatre in Voices From Prison for the Royal Shakespeare Company; Coexistences and Outside In, which toured London and played at the Edinburgh Festival. She also wrote and starred in the stage productions Te Awa I Tahuti (which toured London) and Daddy's Girl, both later published by Playmarket.

Owen has also starred in numerous television productions, both at home and abroad. Credits include the New Zealand series The Call Up; Cover Story; Hightide; The Visitation; Shark in The Park; the one hour dramas Variations on a Theme, written by Rawiri Paratene and directed by Don Selwyn and Roimata, directed by Riwia Brown. She also presented and co-wrote the documentary Beth's World. In Britain she has appeared in productions such as Nightmare to a Dream for ITV and the mini-series Savage Play for the BBC.

Following Warriors, Owen spent some time in Australia where she starred in the television series Medivac; the feature film Dance Me To My Song, which screened in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and earned her a 1998 Australian Film Institute Best Supporting Actress nomination, and Vaudeville House a silent movie for director Marianne Rischert.

Additional feature film credits include the US production Rapa Nui, produced by Kevin Costner; I'll Make You Happy in which she appears opposite Jennifer Ward Lealand and the short films Nine Across; Hinekaro and Her Iliard.

Last year, Owen starred in the stage production Fine Dancing which played in Hawaii and Guam as part of the Micronesian Arts Festival. New Zealand theatrical credits include Stephen Berkoff's West and Kvetch; The Hungry City; Whatungarongaro, which played at the Adelaide Festival and Iwitaia amongst others. Most recently she starred in Garth Maxwell's feature film When Love Comes, which recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

Owen, of Ngapuhi/Ngati Hine descent, has also directed several stage plays; represented Maori Theatre at the South Pacific Arts Festival; attended Playwrights&Mac226; conferences in New Zealand and Canberra, Australia and toured the worldwide film festival circuit extensively.

ACTING with Rena Owen

Tentatively Scheduled:

Wednesday October 11- Sunday October 15th

W/Th/F from 7-10pm

OACC (Oakland Asian Cultural Center)

388 Ninth Street, Suite 290

Oakland, CA 94706

Room 5

Sat/Sun from 12-4pm

Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California

1840 Sutter Street, Conference Room 1

San Francisco, CA 94115-3220



$125.00

$105.00 for members of AATC

Ask about our scholarships through NU&Mac226;U SINA Project for Pacific Islanders

WRITER'S WORKSHOP with Daniel Taulapapa McMullin

Dan Taulapapa McMullin is 2nd generation Samoan American from San Pedro, California. His family is from Tutuila, Olosega and Upolu Islands in Samoa and American Samoa. After attending California Institute of the Arts, and a career in Television Photojournalism, Mr. McMullin began writing workshops in Los Angeles theater at East West Players, Highways in Santa Monica and the L.A. Gay&Lesbian Center.

His first play, the one-act Quitting the Garden, won a Jerome Fellowship at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis in 1993. Quitting the Garden was dark comedy about a young afakasi (mixed blood) woman chained to a bed visited by a boyfriend whom she sends to Antarctica to retrieve a lost diary in an egg. She hopes to murder her father with the diary and free herself. The boyfriend returns from Antartica with the diary to discover the young woman has found a new boyfriend.

D. Taulapapa McMullin's first full length play Sodomie was produced at Soho Rep in New York and Theatre Mu in Minneapolis. Set in Minneapolis in the 1970's, the story is of a young Pacific Islander man who works for a conservative think tank in snowbound Minnesota. His mother is an eccentric without a past. Unable to rise within the conservative ranks, the young man begins investigating the history of the bikini swimsuit. The story moves to the Island of Bikini which was destroyed in American nuclear tests right after World War Two. Re-named Bikini Boy, this work is under option with producer Christine Kunewa Walker of Offline Entertainment in New York and is in development with Sundance Native Screenwriting Initiative in Los Angeles.

Mr. McMullin is developing a new play Pink Heaven with Asian American Theatre Company, where he is Playwright-in-Residence. He lives in Oakland, California and in Apia, Samoa.

Register TODAY!!! Class size is limited. Contact Joan Osato at 415-440-5545 or email aatc@wenet.net. Check out current listings and upcoming events on our website: http://www.wenet.net/~aatc.

Please send checks, made payable to Asian American Theater Company, to the following address:

Asian American Theater Company

1840 Sutter Street, Suite 207

San Francisco, CA 94115-3220

Attention: Joan