Both Eyes Open

“Todd London interviews 2020-21 Legacy Playwrights Initiative Award winner Philip Kan Gotanda.

The Legacy Playwrights Initiative honors playwrights for their sustained influence on the American theater and gives renewed attention to their body of work.

The Initiative has five main components: 1) Two monetary Legacy Playwright Awards; 2) Advocacy and financial incentives for professional theatre production for the awarded playwrights; 3) New publication efforts and the reissuing of previously published plays; 4) Work to build awareness and opportunity within the theater field and in American universities; 5) Filmed interviews highlighting the careers of these Legacy Playwrights.”

As the Supreme Court outlaws affirmative action at colleges, Bay Area actors, composers, directors and arts leaders speak out.

The Wash, adapted from a play by Philip Kan Gotanda, this keenly perceptive drama focuses on the upheavals that rock a Japanese American family when the sixty-something Masi (played by Nobu McCarthy) announces she is leaving her conservative, emotionally neglectful husband, Nobu (played by Mako), after forty years together. As she finds rejuvenation in a new relationship, he struggles to move forward. Touching on issues of assimilation, generational conflict, and the legacy of the Japanese internment, The Wash is a moving and beautifully performed look at the intricacies of love in old age.

Now streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of its Asian American 80's film offering. Membership required to view but a 7 day free trial is available.

“The American Academy of Arts & Sciences announced its new fellows this week, among them six distinguished UC Berkeley faculty members.

The new UC Berkeley fellows are medical anthropologist Charles Briggs, philosopher John Campbell, neuroscientist Marla Feller, playwright Philip Kan Gotanda…”