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East West Players
East West Players is an Asian American theatre organization in Los Angeles, founded in 1965. As the nation's first professional Asian American theatre organization, East West Players continues to produce works and educational programs that give voice to the Asian Pacific American experience today. Overview Established in 1965 by Mako, Rae Creevey, Beulah Quo, Soon-tek Oh, James Hong, Pat Li, June Kim, Guy Lee, and Yet Lock as a place where Asian-American actors could perform roles beyond the stereotypical caricatures they were being limited to in Hollywood. An early statement of purpose read: "To further cultural understanding between the East and West by employing the dual Oriental and American heritages of the East-West Players." Current mission statement: As the nation's premier Asian American theatre organization, East West Players produces artistic works and educational programs that foster dialogue exploring Asian Pacific experiences. Current vision statement: * Continu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California
Little Tokyo (), also known as Little Tokyo Historic District, is an ethnically Japanese American district in downtown Los Angeles and the heart of the largest Japanese-American population in North America. It is the largest and most populous of only three official Japantowns in the United States, all of which are in California (the other two are Japantown, San Francisco, and Japantown, San Jose). Founded around the beginning of the 20th century, the area, sometimes called Lil' Tokyo, J-Town, , is the cultural center for Japanese Americans in Southern California. It was declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1995. History Origins: 1880s The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 played a pivotal role in the first large wave of Japanese Immigration to the United States as the Japanese were heavily recruited to serve as 'cheap labor' in place of the now excluded Chinese laborers. One of the people influenced by this first wave of Japanese Immigration was Hamanosuke Shigeta, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by employing both manual and nonmanual features. Besides North America, dialects of ASL and ASL-based creole language, creoles are used in many countries around the world, including much of West Africa and parts of Southeast Asia. ASL is also widely learned as a second language, serving as a lingua franca. ASL is most closely related to French Sign Language (LSF). It has been proposed that ASL is a creole language of LSF, although ASL shows features atypical of creole languages, such as agglutination, agglutinative morphology. ASL originated in the early 19th century in the American School for the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut, from a situation of language contact. Since then, ASL use has been propagated widely by schools ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emily Kuroda
Emily Keiko Kuroda (born October 30, 1952) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Mrs. Kim on TV's ''Gilmore Girls'', but she has had a long career on stage and screen and is a veteran of East West Players, Los Angeles's premier Asian American theater group. Early life and education Kuroda, a Japanese American, was born in Fresno, California, the daughter of Kay and William Kuroda. She began acting and directing in high school and majored in drama at California State University, Fresno before launching her career on stage and screen. Career Kuroda has performed in numerous plays including Luis Alfaro's ''Straight as a Line'' at Playwrights' Arena, directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera, Chay Yew's ''Red'' at East West Players, ''Winter People'' at the Boston Court, and Ken Narasaki's ''Innocent When You Dream'' at the Electric Lodge, which was directed by her husband, Alberto Isaac. She appeared in Narasaki's '' No-No Boy'' at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Muraoka
Alan Muraoka (born August 10, 1962) is an American actor and director. He plays Alan, the current owner of Hooper's Store, on the television show ''Sesame Street'' since 1998. He currently serves on the board of directors at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice, an LGBTQIA safe-space, community activist center, and educational bridge dedicated to honoring Bayard Rustin through their mission and good works. Early career Muraoka was born on August 10, 1962, in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California. Muraoka's first experience as a performer came at the age of 10, where he appeared as "The Candy Man" at a movie theatre during the intermission of a double feature. According to the biography on his official site, he performed throughout high school where he also had his first experience as a director - ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?''. Muraoka studied at the Theater Department of UCLA and won the Carol Burnett Musical Theatre Award for performance. While at college, he pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alec Mapa
Alejandro "Alec" Mapa (; born July 10, 1965) is an United States, American actor, comedian and writer. He got his first professional break when he was cast to replace B. D. Wong for the role of Song Liling in the Broadway theatre, Broadway production of ''M. Butterfly''. He gained recognition for roles such as Adam Benet on ''Half & Half'', Suzuki St. Pierre on ''Ugly Betty'' and Vern on ''Desperate Housewives''. Mapa recurred as Renzo on ''Switched at Birth (TV series), Switched at Birth''. Mapa co-hosted the Logo network reality dating game show ''Transamerican Love Story'' with Calpernia Addams in 2008. In 2013, he debuted in his own one-man show, ''Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy'', which was made into a concert film and premiered on Showtime (TV network), Showtime in 2015. Early life Mapa was born in San Francisco and attended George Washington High School (San Francisco), George Washington High School. While in high school, he played Randolph McAfee in the production of ''Bye Bye Bird ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amy Hill
Amy Marie Hill (born May 9, 1953) is an American actress and stand-up comedian. Hill's first major role was as Yung-Hee "Grandma" Kim on '' All-American Girl''. Hill has been a mainstay on American television in her work, many of her roles being major recurring roles, the most notable being: Mrs. DePaulo on ''That's So Raven'', Mama Tohru on ''Jackie Chan Adventures'', Mrs. Hasagawa in '' Lilo & Stitch: The Series'' (reprising the same character she played in ''Lilo & Stitch''), Ah-Mah Jasmine Lee in ''The Life and Times of Juniper Lee'', Judy Harvey in '' Enlightened'', Mah Mah Ling in ''American Dad!'', Beverly Tarantino in ''Mom'' and Ms. Mannering in ''Preacher''. Hill was a series regular on the Amazon Prime Video show '' Just Add Magic'' as Mama P along with recurring in ''Unreal'' as Dr. Wagerstein on the basic cable network Lifetime and The CW romantic comedy musical ''Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'' as Lourdes Chan. She also plays Teuila "Kumu" Tuileta, the cultural curator of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lauren Tom
Lauren Tom (born August 4, 1961) is an American actress. She began her career on stage, winning an Obie Award, and gained recognition for her role in '' The Joy Luck Club'' (1993). On television, she is known for her roles in the NBC sitcom ''Friends'' (1995–96), the ABC shows '' Grace Under Fire'' (1997–98) and '' Men in Trees'' (2006–08), The CW series ''Supernatural'' (2012–14), and the Disney Channel series '' Andi Mack'' (2017–19). In animation, Tom has voiced Amy Wong in ''Futurama'', Dana Tan on '' Batman Beyond'', Jinx and Gizmo in ''Teen Titans'' and ''Teen Titans Go!'', Minh and Connie Souphanousinphone on ''King of the Hill'', Numbuh 3 in '' Codename: Kids Next Door'', and Mrs. Maybank and Dr. Jamanpour on '' Hamster and Gretel''. Early life Tom was born in the Chicago suburb Highland Park, Illinois, on August 4, 1961, the daughter of Nancy (née Dare) and Chan Tom, Jr. She has a brother, Chip. Her parents were born in Chicago, and their grandparents cam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Saito
James Saito is an American actor. Saito is best known as the original Shredder in ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'', Dr. Chen in the ABC series ''Eli Stone'', Harry Kim in the Netflix film ''Always Be My Maybe'', and Kenji in '' Modern Love''. Saito received an OBIE for his performance in DURANGO at the Public Theater in NY. He is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Early life Saito's parents are of Japanese descent. He graduated from Hamilton High in LA and the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in theater. He later studied acting with actress Uta Hagen at HB Studio, located in New York City. He was in the last group of students who studied with Sanford Meisner on the island of Bequia in the Grenadines and then continued with Meisner in North Hollywood. Career Saito also appeared in the movies ''Life of Pi'', ''Big Eyes'', '' Wilson'', '' While We're Young'', ''I Think I Love My Wife'', '' Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BD Wong
Bradley Darryl Wong (born October 24, 1960) is an American actor. Wong won a Tony Award for his performance as Song Liling in '' M. Butterfly'', becoming the only actor in Broadway history to receive the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Clarence Derwent Award, and Theatre World Award for the same role. For his role as Whiterose in the television series ''Mr. Robot'', he was nominated for both a Critic's Choice Television Award and an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Wong is known for such roles as Howard Weinstein in the film '' Father of the Bride'', Dr. George Huang on '' Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'', Father Ray Mukada on '' Oz'', Dr. John Lee on '' Awake'', Dr. Henry Wu in the ''Jurassic Park'' franchise, Hugo Strange in '' Gotham'', and Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme in the film '' Seven Years in Tibet''. Wong is the host of the HLN medical documentary series ''Something's Killing Me with BD Wong''. He has also done extensive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of newspapers in the United States, sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the largest in the Western United States with a print circulation of 118,760. It has 500,000 online subscribers, the fifth-largest among U.S. newspapers. Owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by California Times, the paper has won over 40 Pulitzer Prizes since its founding. In the 19th century, the paper developed a reputation for civic boosterism and opposition to Trade union, labor unions, the latter of which led to the Los Angeles Times bombing, bombing of its headquarters in 1910. The paper's profile grew substantially in the 1960s under publisher Otis Chandler, who adopted a more national focus. As with other regional newspapers in California and the United Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodney Kageyama
Rodney Masao Kageyama (November 1, 1941 – December 9, 2018) was an American stage, film and TV actor. He was a Nisei Japanese American (second-generation) and besides acting in Asian American theater groups, he was also a director and designer. With his roles in the “Gung Ho” film and television series and the “Karate Kid” franchise, he was a trailblazer for Asian Americans in Hollywood. Career Theatre Born in nearby San Mateo, Kageyama began his career in San Francisco in 1965 as one of the original members of the Asian American Theater Company. While in San Francisco he attended the American Conservatory Theater. In 1979, Kageyama moved to Los Angeles where he joined the Asian American theatre group, East West Players (EWP), working as an actor, director, and designer. In 1985 he received a Drama-Logue Award for Costume Design for EWP's ''Rashomon''. In 1993, Kageyama directed ''The Grapevine'', written by Grateful Crane Ensemble founder Soji Kashiwagi, produced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Lone
John Lone (; born October 13, 1952) is a Chinese-American retired actor. He starred as Puyi in the Academy Award-winning film '' The Last Emperor'' (1987), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. A veteran of the East West Players, he appeared in numerous high-profile screen and stage roles throughout the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, in films like '' Iceman'', '' Year of the Dragon'', '' M. Butterfly'', ''The Shadow'', and '' Rush Hour 2''. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in '' The Moderns''. Biography Lone was born in 1952 as Ng Kwok-leung () in British-ruled Hong Kong. He was raised in an orphanage and later adopted by a woman from Shanghai. At age 7, he was sent to train in the style of the Peking opera at Hong Kong's Chin Chiu Academy, where he was trained in singing, dance, and classical Chinese theater techniques. It was here that he was given the name Johnny; he chose the surn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
