The Fairy Princess has been on a self mandated break – because frankly, watching AAPIs get attacked via news reports, almost every day in the past few months, has made her very wary of engaging in any sort of debate because she has been doing this for ten years.

Yes, 10 years!

In her TEN YEARS of breaking it down for folks, it is super depressing to note that however many people she was able to ‘reach’, there was a far greater number who hate and would do violence to her simply because of the way she looks or where her family has heritage, she really had to ponder the worth of what she does.

The only thing that kept her hanging on was that Warrior got another season and starts filming in July 2022.

Sometimes it does not seem like anything has been accomplished at all. However that is defeatist and actually, quite a lot has changed, and not just her blood pressure.

Do AAPI’s have enough people on Broadway to represent the AAPI population of New York City at least?

No. Not even close.

However we do have Shoba Narayan in ALADDIN, Zach Piser in DEAR EVAN HANSEN, Manu Narayan (no relation) in COMPANY, Eva Noblezada and Kay Trinidad in HADESTOWN, Andrea Macaseaet in SIX, Kelvin Moon Loh in BEeTlEjUiCE, Marc Delacruz, Eddy Lee, and Preston Mui in HAMILTON on Broadway, as well as several AAPIs throughout their touring companies. In MUSIC MAN we have Ann Sanders in the Ensemble. In one of the ‘straight’ plays on The Broadway, POTUS, you can find Dr. Ken’s Suzy Nakamura as the Press Secretary and Lisa Helmi Johanson covering the role of Dusty.

Whilst downtown at NY’s Public Theater they just closed THE CHINESE LADY by Lloyd Suh, starring Daniel K. Issacs and Shannon Tyo, understudied by Cindy Im and Jon Norman Schneider. The Public currently have on the boards, SUFFS with Philippa Soo, Nadia Dandashi, Jaygee Macapuguay, and Mia Pak as Suffragettes.

Not to mention, but mention must be made of Conrad Ricamora in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS…

Plus, the cast of INTO THE WOODS at City Center, going up with a limited run till May 15th, has Ann Harada,, Albert Guerson, Brooke Ishibashi, Kennedy Kanagawa!

Ms Kristina Wong won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Solo Show! For her show Sweatshop Overloard, about her Auntie Sewing Squad making masks during the pandemic!

Lia Chang, photographer , filmmaker, actress and archivist won the Prospect Muse Award for her excellent, artistic photographs

One also has to get excited about CITIZEN WONG at Pan Asian Rep in New York City – a new play about social activist Wong Chin Foo, a Gilded Age pioneer who was the first to fight US law banning any people of any race from the United States – imagine where we’d be now if he had not done that?

Get your tickets here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/252/production/1110862

Other news includes ….BHANGIN’ IT with a book by Rehana Lew Mirza and Mike Lew slayed in La Jolla!

The new workshop production of COME FALL IN LOVE, direction by Aditya Chopra, with book & lyrics by Nell Benjamin, Choreo by Rob Ashford and Associate Choreo by Shruti Merchant which starred Shoba Narayan and Vishal Vaidya according to little birdies, went amazingly well!

Let’s say that again – there were TWO South Asian Musical Theater Projects happening one right after the other….TFP has never been able to write that about Broadway bound South Asian projects.

It’s slightly better.

What TFP does keep reminding people is that change is slow.

She just said that to a group of students up at University of CT. You might really want to jump up and down and scream your face off because you are on a schedule and opportunity is running late – and feel free – but real and actual change is slow. It takes time… building a career in musical theater, just as it does in television and film. Not to mention, building it so that Executives trust you with their project…it takes building those credits one at a time, getting better at auditioning, honing the acting…nothing happens overnight.

When TFP first began this blog, there were no de facto AAPI Film or Television stars except Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, Tamlyn Tomita, Daniel Dae Kim, Reggie Lee, Grace Park, Roger Fan, Sung Kang, Parry Shen, Masi Oka, James Kyson Lee and John Cho.

That was who was working.

Pretty much that was it.

Of course there were people who starred in films or who were on television shows who everyone predicted big things for, but the big things did not materialize in a lot of cases, and that’s not mean, that’s what happened. Guest stars and let’s be honest, mainly co-stars was where the majority of AAPI actors were relegated.

AAPIS got knocked down a lot – but we got up again, every time.

Over the past decade TFP has seen a lot of new faces – not a plastic surgery joke btw – some via reality tv, some coming from modeling, some coming from comedy, some from prestigious universities – the point is, there has been change and there will be more change. We will likely not ever be ubiquitous in the United States, but we will become more visible, which is all we are asking.

We have a diversity that is only beginning to be recognized – Rizwan Manji and Annie Chang on Peacemaker fills TFP with joy.

Ali Wong, Aparna Nancherla, Hari Kongabolu, Ronny Chieng, Romesh Ranganathan and Jo Koy make her laugh till she cannot breath and look, Jo Koy has a pilot that looks like it is being picked up.

Who does it focus on? Jo Koy’s family. So who is hired to play his family growing up?

Filipino American Actors! However, keep in mind, Jo Koy has been doing comedy for close to twenty years. This is what TFP means – he had to build his career – and now that it is going gangbusters, he has the opportunity to launch a show and help other Fil-Am Actors.

He has always been funny – America just needed to catch up.

That’s how it works. Same with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – it takes time, Folks.

To that end, and because TFP doesn’t want this part to be too ‘preachy’, she is going to ask you to celebrate AAPI Month by purchasing a copy of RISE for yourself and asking you to actually open the book, not just put it on the coffee table.

In here you will find, (TFP is very fond of pages 44 and 45), much of where AAPIs have been, and why noted journalists and bloggers and film makers who curated and contributed to it – (TFP mentioned pages 44 and 45, yes?)- predict greater moments to come.

TFP cannot show you better than to show you this book and request that you find out your past to foresee your future. You can follow the book on Instagram, to see signings and readings near you.

It was an honor to be asked to contribute – thank you Jeff, Phil, and Philip.

There is much to be grateful for – we can look to streamers and see ourselves!

It is exciting to see Bridgerton embracing South Asians in their storyline, and it must be said, very refreshing to see people with darker complexions being hailed in the storyline as ‘diamonds’ – because in Bollywood, they are not. HUGE. Everything that TFP hoped for when she wrote about the first season of Bridgerton.

The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) have done a brilliant job relaunching International Film Goddess Michelle Yeoh in “Everything Everywhere All At Once”

May was looking ok – barring the attacks on the street and in the subways… and then few celebrities or their stylists seem to understand the concept of the Gilded Age and started putting their clients in their best Golden Girls drag (Mrs. Astor would have NEVER…), at the MET Gala…TFP was distraught

and then SCOTUS leaked…

All the while, a war is continuing in the Ukraine, the planet has 30 years to continue on if we do not change, and oh yeah, men will be completely in charge of female bodies if you live in a Red State.

That is correct – SCOTUS is planning an overthrow of Roe V. Wade, which grants people the right to a safe medical procedure, known as an abortion. Something that should not be happening, especially given the climate crisis the world is facing whether it wants to, or not.

The planet is dying. Read the report.

You can get all up in your feelings about this procedure, but TFP believes that if one truly did not want abortions in the world, then men would get vasectomies, which are reversible. That way, the man is fully in control of when he wants to procreate, and there would be no ‘mistakes’ because if one is taking care of one’s own reproductive health with authority and responsibility, there would be less unwanted pregnancies and less abandoned children.

Vasectomies are safe, as well as being about male health and thus will never be in jeopardy of not being covered by insurance. Nor will people who have uteri ever try to jump in and ‘mandate’ them in any way, shape or form – because people with uteri know that that ‘procedure’ is between the person with the penis and their doctor. Does not matter the reason for the procedure.

The Person with the penis has the sperm for full term, while the vessel…

In other words, men do not care about…hold up – Cisgendered Straight Men – do not care about access to abortion, because even if their proclivities wind up in an unwanted pregnancy, they can and do walk away.

Yes, there are some that care – if you are a cisgendered straight man and feeling attacked after you read this whole blog, trust and believe, you will feel the sting for all of twenty seconds – the rest of us LIVE there. You will be fine.

It is time for LGBTQIA+ peoples and Women and Indigenous People and People of Color across all boundaries to come together and vote.

Come together and fight.

Body Autonomy is first on the list, next is Marriage Equality, and your ability to gain access to vote.

There are no ‘both sides’ – we are past that, America. We have to get them out of power, we have to get them out of even having a dream of a semblance of power. We cannot mess around any longer – the planet needs change, the people need change, the future must change or there will be no future.

TFP is choosing violence for her first blog in a while – because she remembered to NOT act, is to let evil win.

TFP out.