Manzanar and Star Trek...

Love.  War.  Loss.  Discovery.  Actress/Writer/Producer Cynthia Gates Fujikawa's one-woman show OLD MAN RIVER running through March 1st at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, in Los Angeles will be supported with a true-life castmember on Sunday, February 15th at 3 p.m., when her sister Tirsa De Jong of Olympia, Washington arrives to the production about their father, the late Hollywood character actor WWII veteran, Jerry Fujikawa (Chinatown, M*A*S*H, Taxi).  Fujikawa's secret-life experience in the Japanese Internment Camp, Manzanar and a previous family, produced the sister Cyndy never knew existed until her search after the death of her father in 1983.  

Cynthia Gates Fujikawa's one-woman two-act play OLD MAN RIVER with a successful engagement off Broadway under its belt, is a multi-media catalog of history lost and love found.  This is a heartfelt tale of family connection, disconnection and Jerry Fujikawa's experience under the Executive Order 9066 evacuation of people of Japenese ancestry in the United States.  Armed with the knowledge gained from endless hours of research, Fujikawa was determined to find her sister De Jong.  As she uncovered family secrets that her father's pride had consigned to the grave, she realized that acting was a full-time job for her father both on and off the screen.

De Jong, twenty years Fujikawa's senior is a business manager for Rainier Dodge in Washington state, a mother of three and grandmother.  "It's been pure joy having my friendship with Cyndy.  I not only have a younger sister, but now I get to know other family members I didn't even know about," states De Jong.  "Cyndy has worked very hard at researching the Internment Camps and if it weren't for that, we wouldn't have connected," explains De Jong.

Later on, Actor George Takei of Star Trek fame, will make a departure from his well known character of Mr. Sulu, to speak  on a personal level about his larger role as a Japanese American who was interned, and his journey as an Asian American actor in Hollywood.  Takei's speech follows a performance of Cynthia Gates Fujikawa's one-woman show,  OLD MAN RIVER  at Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, in Los Angeles at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 1st.

Like 120,000 other Americans of Japanese Ancestry, Takei spent the second world war behind barbed wire.  Viewed a potential "disloyal," George passed much of his childhood in internment camps in Arkansas and Northern California.  Takei chronicled his personal account of Japanese American internment in his 1994 autobiography, "To The Stars," which Fujikawa references in her performance of OLD MAN RIVER.  In addition to being an actor, Takei is a community activist in Southern California, and serves on the board of the Japanese American National Museum.  

OLD MAN RIVER is an autobiographical account of another familiar face from TV and film: character actor Jerry Fujikawa (M*A*S*H's 'Whiplash Wang,' and the gardener in Chinatown).  In this solo performance, Ms. Fujikawa learns how 'unfamiliar' her father actually was to her.  In OLD MAN RIVER, she tells the story of uncovering a father very different than the one she thought she knew, a man whose life was destroyed by the internment during World War II.  

In its recent West Coast premiere at Theatre West, OLD MAN RIVER  was chosen Pick of the Week by LA Weekly, which described it as "deeply personal and arresting... a ripping mystery...evocative and emotionally searing."  OLD MAN RIVER continues its run Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. through March 1st at Theatre West in Los Angeles.  Tickets are $18; $12 for students and seniors - 213/660-TKTS.

For more information, or press interviews with Cynthia Gates Fujikawa or George Takei, please call Stacey Kumagai at Media Monster Communications at 818/506-8675.   

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