TFP has seen Warrior on Netflix go up to #6, and currently it is down to #8. The Last Airbender remake is currently at #1 – Congratulations to all. TFP doesn’t mind admitting that some of her very dear friends worked on The Last Airbender, and hey – they served.

However, back to Warrior. We need a Season 4 – because we need to KNOW what happened to the stories we were following at the end of Season 3. Thus, as TFP told you – keep an ipad or a tv in another room running on Netflix. Personally TFP has one on in the kitchen, which she runs without sound, but tuned in because she wants to see how it all works out! This support she gives the show is purely selfish, she just is crazy about it.

Congrats to Tony winning playwright – David Henry Hwang who wrote the libretto (that is ‘the book’ for the Broadway crowd) , AINADAMAR, which he wrote with GRAMMY Award winning Argentinian composer, Osvaldo Golijov, will premiere at…hold on THE METROPOLITAN OPERA in the 2024-2025 season!

This is Mr. Golijov’s first opera – and it dramatizes the life of the poet-playwright Ferderico Garcia Lorca (House of Bernarda Alba, anyone?) who was assassinated by Fascist forces at the start of the Spanish Civil War. Why, you ask? Because he was a Socialist and a Homosexual.

The story is told through his muse, Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu, as she recounts the tale to her student, Nuria. Lorca appears as a dreamlike persona and is sung as a ‘pants role’ – aka a mezzo dressed as a man. Directed and choreographed by Brasilian Deborah Colker (best known for her work with Cirque du Soleil) – this looks incredible.

If you cannot get to New York – you can go see live broadcasts-

Also – do you know how HARD it is to get a new opera up and running, much less premiering at one of the world’s most revered stages? It is beyond impossible- and yet, there is DHH quietly doing the work. Showing up, writing, creating, teaching at Columbia, mentoring – and best of all, collaborating with others of like mind.

May they get all the flowers and world premieres available to them, TFP is honored to know him.

Is this Mr. Hwang’s first opera?

No.

He also wrote the libretto for Icarus at the Edge of Time with Brian Greene, music by Philip Glass. The Fly, where he wrote with composer Howard Shore – based on the 1986 film. Alice in Wonderland with Unsuk Chin, based on the novel and premiered in 2007 in Bavaria – where it was hailed as the “World Premiere of the Year”. The Silver River, based on a 4000 year old Chinese story about forbidden love between a Goddess and a mortal, where he worked with composer Bright Sheng. In 1992, he wrote the libretto on commission from The Met for The Voyage, music by Philip Glass, and again with Mr. Glass and Jerome Sirlin, in 1998, he wrote 1000 Airplanes.

TFP got her Certification in Opera Direction from Ithaca College in May, so she is very excited to see this production.

Congrats to BD Wong as he stars in the play, BIG DATA, at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater – he plays M, a lively personification of the technology we use regularly.

Now, we are going to turn our attention to…Florida.

Yes, TFP knows. However, a lot of theater happens in Florida and that is because there are a lot of people who retire there – and retired people who have means, go to theater. Are there more matinees in Florida? Very likely, or at least, earlier curtain times during the week.

Recently in Florida, the American Stage Theater had an incident where they were producing Lloyd Suh‘s The Chinese Lady, giving it it’s Florida premiere. TFP wants to explain that Playwrights really only make money when their plays are up and running – so for American Stage to take the step to produce it, is great. TFP holds Lloyd in great esteem, and she did ask him for a statement, which, if he responds, she will insert in this piece.

The Chinese Lady is about Afong Moy, who is allegedly the first Chinese woman to step on U.S. soil in 1834, when she was 14 – some descriptions of the her place her at 16 years old. She is placed on display – yes, that is what TFP said – and for the next 50 years, she performs for curious white people. She had bound feet, and the ticket buying public could not get enough.

In 2022 it was presented in a co-production by Ma-Yi Theater Company and The Barrington Stage at NY’s Public Theater. It starred Shannon Tyo and Daniel K. Issac, let’s hear from them, as they are the ‘OG’s”…

Shannon just was awarded this past year’s OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement in Theater, just fyi.

Now, let’s hear from Daniel, whose work on BILLIONS has made him a household name.

Please note what Daniel said about showing history – this play portrays a little known piece of both American and Chinese history, which took place in America, and makes it one of the first pieces of Asian American history.

It is often said that if we do not know history, we are doomed to repeat it. Florida is conservative Marco Rubio country – the land of COVID denial, they have taken a stand against the teaching of Black history in America – and as we all know, Black History IS American history – and that is the tip of the iceberg in terms of their batshit crazy that seems to be ‘just a Wednesday’, down there.

They also have Disneyland and Universal Studios. So it is a land of chaos.

TFP has friends that now feel unsafe to go to Florida for performance jobs, and she does not blame them at all. She has had friends move their lives to live there, only to spend time there and come racing back to New York even with the taxes. They could not take the bigotry and they, were not minorities.

Is Florida hostile to minorities? Yes. It is. Is everyone in Florida like this? No, of course not.

Therefore when initial rumblings came out of Florida, and from American Stage with this statement,

TFP was confused – what had happened?

Now, Actors are excitable people and the initial recounting of what happened was concerning – an Actor was fired for wearing a keffiyeh at curtain call. Cue the multiple reactions. Very hyperbolic.

This is not what happened.

TFP is going to repeat – this is not what happened.

The Keffiyeh was worn along with an ink on chest tatoo which read “Free Palestine” and was present for the last 3-5 minutes of the show. During the course of the play. Starting, as stated by the Director, on page 40 of the play. The play ends at page 41.

The Actor was not fired. The actor was placed on hold, aka they were not allowed on the stage or in the theater because they inserted a political message into a play that is already political, and subverted the intention of the Playwright. The Actor in question is still being paid their full wage.

The issue for the theater, one supposes, is trust.

The Actor has lost the trust of the Producers.

Does TFP think it is an over-reaction?

Did the Actor do this alone? No. The Director thought of it, and without telling Production, Designers, or the other Actors in the piece, on the Wednesday of the last week of the run, inserted it without rehearsal and did it intentionally to be an act of agitation. In fact, they cited where it was to occur – page 40 – in the play on a message board.

TFP was tagged in it, and this is her response. She took off the Director’s name, but it is their response to a question.

TFP has worked in a lot of places as an Actor, a few as a Director, and even more as a Producer – she knows that the place for her personal expression is after the show. She has been on panels after a show and actually been encouraged to speak and express views – and that is the correct place for it – not until the story on the stage is complete and actors are out of wardrobe.

Do not be mistaken that this is a “Noble Call” moment a la HAMILTON speaking to Mike Pence from the stage. In that case, the show was over, the bows were taken – and the Production Team endorsed and co-wrote the words the Actor spoke to the Then Vice President of the Orange one’s reign.

Production was consulted. They all agreed to take the moment.

They took this “Noble Call” concept from the Irish Theater tradition of, AFTER the show is done, they talk about a current political moment – this concept is hundreds of years old. It takes place AFTER the bows. It oftimes has guests to speak to these points. People who are experts at the subject.

What happened at American Stage was not a Noble Call. No one was consulted. No one was prepped. No one here was an expert in geo-politics.

This is not the story that the playwright wanted to tell, in a play that is already political. This is American history representing the outsider-ness that Chinese people and by extension all Asian groups as we all are perceived to ‘look alike’ – it is enough of a message.

Because we still experience it. In this, the Year of the Wooden Dragon, 2024, we still experience it.

It is because we do still experience it, we have murders at a day spa, we have murders in apartment buildings, we have our elders beaten to death or grave injury in public spaces and no one comes to help – we have the largest single lynching in US History, and we have an entire group of concentration camp survivors whose relatives are still processing what happened to them. We have people who are mistaken for other members within the Asian diaspora and are beaten to death – performing a play with Asian heritaged actors that was directed by an Asian American and written by an Asian American in and of itself, is a form of protest.

We still need the following hashtag to remind people to treat us as people!

Asian American history is enough. The act was done because the Director and the Actor did not trust that the play was enough. That’s it. They did not trust the play. The kick in the pants is that both of the people in question, have Asian heritage.

TFP knows this because she has the screenshot from the director responding on a public message board. She has it, it is in her phone – however she thinks the best thing to do is not put these ‘Chaos Monsters’ on blast on a blog that has international reach – because, they seem young. The response on the message board uses hyperbolic language about how devastated this Director is – and yet, the theater which is – yes, run by white people – is honestly handling it correctly.

Sometimes, white people can do that.

She personally would have suspended the actor for one show and had the Director in for a discussion about parameters. However, trust had been broken – and this Director has, by their own admission – less interest in directing a play, and more in causing chaos.

There is nothing wrong with chaos or ‘good trouble’ – but there are venues for that – nightclubs, performance art spaces, marches, rallies, instagram and social media – all of those are where we express our personal feelings. All of those were available to the Director and the Performer.

We do not go to a subscription based house who does not have an history of producing works by Asian Americans in super conservative St. Petersburg, and destroy whatever community feelings are invested because our inner chaos monster needs to be fed. We particularly do not go into a Union house and subvert the ways in which things are designed to run and decide we know better, if we are under the age of 35. Do you think this theater will now be looking to produce other works by Asian American playwrights and in fact, hire Asian American directors and casts because of this experience?

The Patriarchy is super happy about this, one imagines.

If what you want to do is protest art – then write your own piece so we all know exactly where you stand.

TFP loves protest art – this blog is a form of protest, and she has taken the hits for it since she began writing it 12 years ago. She has been banned, she has been canceled, she has had vitriol directed directly to her and her Family – yes she has, but it is HER work. She stands by it.

If you want to make political parallels about what is happening in this play and what is currently happening – have a talk-back after the show. Answer questions from the audience. It is not that theater does not allow room for political discussion – but the playwright has the right to have their work done as written. That is what the contract says – by word and deed you do not change the play.

You do not get to steal context from a writer.

Every play is a form of protest. Every word, every written in pause – it has been labored over again and again.

What happened here is that the Director and the Actor decided they knew better than the Writer, than Production, and than the rest of the Company. It’s hubris. Just because it is AA hubris, does not mean it is not.

The theater has rules and the theater makes allowances for differences of opinion, but those rules are in place to protect people. Overall, it is the mission of the Director to safeguard the Playwright’s work, and guide the actors – and that was not done here.

No care to safeguard the Playwright was taken by this Director, so Management had to step forward and do it.

If you were a Playwright, and someone inserted themselves in your play – something you had work on for years and sweated over, and stayed up late over, endless cups of coffee and multiple investments by theater companies to keep it going – how would you feel?

Imagine how Lloyd Suh feels.

FFS don’t be this kind of Florida Man either.

Finally, TFP wishes to extend her condolences to the Family and Friends of 16 year old Indigenous descended, Non Binary person, Nex Benedict. Nex was attacked in their High School bathroom by three older female students, who enacted extreme violence upon their person, and Nex succumbed to those injuries after the fact.

Nex’s Mother, Sue, is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation, and they were living on a Cherokee Reservation, where Nex was in school.

May Their Spirit Rest.

TFP out.