East West Players sets millenium season

East West Players, the nation' s first and foremost Asian American theatre, announces its line up for its 34th Anniversary mainstage season at the David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center for the Arts in downtown Los Angeles. East West Players celebrates its third season of productions in its Little Tokyo location at 120 N. Judge John Aiso Street (formerly N. San Pedro Street, between First and Temple Streets).

East West Players Millennium Season is entitled "ADVENTURES TO NEW WORLDS" which commemorates the year 2000. As East West Players celebrates the Millennium, the upcoming productions explore new personal and collective turning points that are integral to our diverse community, which will lead us into the next century.

The season opener will be the World Premiere of LEILANI'S HIBISCUS, by Jon Shirota (Director to be announced), a humor-filled journey about an interracial romance against the backdrop of Hawaii, which is suddenly shattered by the war that forever alters the lives of the lovers. But with magical intervention from the spirit world, the couple meets again in the most unlikely of places. From the author of HAWAII NO KA OI and PINEAPPLE WHITE, LEILANI'S HIBISCUS is another journey to the land of Aloha filled with Hawaiian, Japanese and Okinawan songs and dances. LEILANI'S HIBISCUS opens on September 22 and closes October 17, 1999.

Opening on January 26 and closing February 20, 2000, is the Los Angeles premiere of GOLDEN CHILD by David Henry Hwang. Directed by Chay Yew, GOLDEN CHILD is a highly theatrical work about the eternal theme of family and change by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang. GOLDEN CHILD draws on Hwang's grandmother's true stories about his great grandfather's break with Confucian tradition by his conversion to Christianity and the eventual unbinding of his daughter's feet. GOLDEN CHILD explores the impact of these decisions on each of his grandfather's three wives and succeeding generations on the rewards and bitter costs of freedom and individuality. East West Players is a participant in the National Theatre Artists Residency Program, administered by Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre, and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The World Premiere of MY TIRED BROKE ASS PONTIFICATING SLAPSTICK FUNK, by Euijoon Kim (Director to be announced), opens on March 15 and closes on April 9, 2000. MY TIRED BROKE ASS PONTIFICATING SLAPSTICK FUNK is about Eric who is plagued by old men with little dogs, mysterious fuzzy slippers, arrogant video store clerks, and angry Asian actors. He hasn't been right since he traded insults with Karen in the men's room of that club in Koreatown. How is this generAsian 1.5'er going to get out of his tired broke ass funk? Euijoon Kim, of the David Henry Hwang Writers Institute, shoots from the hip - confounding the genre and defying expectations in this scathing and scabrously funny anti-romantic comedy. This production is sponsored in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. This production also contains strong adult language.

The final show of the season is Broadway musical FOLLIES, book by James Goldman, and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Directed by Tim Dang, FOLLIES opens on May 17 and closes on June 11, 2000. The most beautiful and dreamed about musical entertainment stars which defined the popular culture between the two World Wars. This story is about what happened to these women since their shining moment and what has happened to their American dreams they symbolized for a generation. The action of the show takes place at their theatre, now scheduled for demolition, when a group of Follies girls reunite for a party thirty years after the theatre closed its doors.

East West Players is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, California Community Foundation, Shubert Foundation, AT&T, Edison International, and Ralph M. Parsons Foundation.

For season subscription information, please call East West Players at 213.625.7000.