Impressions from the First National Asian American Theatre Festival

Hordes of Asian American theatre artists have descended on New York to trumpet the opening of the very first National Asian American Theatre Festival. And while the Revue isn't there this year (something to do with leaky roofs, eletrical panels and major home repairs), other folks have been passing along impressions (both positive and negative), which we'll do the best to give to the rest of the world.

"It’s an Asian American theater buffet here in NY. But not enough people know that the restaurant is open." according to Kristina Sheryl Wong, performance artist nonpareil, who has a much lauded show in the festival.

"The festival’s opening night was really exciting and inspiring" she reports. "It was a packed house at the Public Theater. It was amazing because David Henry Hwang kicked it off with the opening speech. And actors read from the “cannon” of Asian American plays. Then they did this great slide show with all the pics of artists from the fest with U2 playing underneath. There was cheering and screaming. I felt like it was high school graduation.

"It was amazing to see how themes had evolved, and how much work there was. I got to meet a lot of the participating artists in the festival. However, not all of them have arrived yet."

Clearly, the energy from last years Next Big Bang (the conference in Los Angeles on Asian American Theatre) easily carried over into the creation of the Festival itself [Ed: like...when I first started out, you could stuff all the Asian American artists into the nearest Volkswagen microbus...and still have room for a Democratic donkey or two...]. Just as clearly, there were a few growing pains in the execution.

For example, last week's Village Voice mentioned a bit of a divide between the old guard, identity-centric theatres, and the younger, more freestyle, more daring artists in terms of content. [Ed: Um, don't look at me. My hair--pretty damn gray, Old Guard, to a T. Then again, I do late night sketch comedy. Then thrice again, I'm a David Henry Hwang fanboy].

Also, there have been several comments about the uneveness of the marketing efforts. There have been considerable number of news articles and features in the mainstream press about the Festival and its offerings; NATCO's House of Bernada Alba and Ma-Yi's Romance of Magno Rubio have been singled out as spectacular productions. However, the lack of an overall promotional booklet (on paper) tying these cornerstorne productions to the other, lesser known artists has been felt keenly.

"It’s a bit of a maze for the public to find their way into the festival," says Wong. "And it shows in the small houses. It was heartbreaking to watch some amazing shows last night and see 3/4 of the house was still empty."

Still, there still exists a fair amount of energy and excitement generated by the Festival. NYTheatre.com has published some extremely solid coverage of the Festival on its website, including a full panoply of reviews of productions. Plus, there are additional, after-hours activities going on, both outside and inside the Festival proper (the Ma-Yi Theatre Lab is throwing up a couple nights of scenes, tribute, monologues and what not, and several artists are participating in the Sam French Festival, also occuring in NYC).

So, for the folks in New York---go on and check out the Festival! Buzz the website and check out who's playing---it's a rare opportunity to see a cross section of exciting Asian theatre talent, taken from across the country!