By Rick Shiomi, Mu Performing Arts

The Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA) held its third national conference and festival (ConFest) from June 17^th to 27^th in Los Angeles. Over 160 theater artists and organizations got together to share ideas and experiences as well as performances. As one of the founding members of this national network, Mu Performing Arts had a number of representatives and related artists attend and participate in the event.

One of the outstanding impressions for me as the artistic director of Mu was the feeling among many attendees that there was so much intense and exciting energy generated by the members of Mu and the Midwest. With so much of the history of Asian American theater tied to either the west coast, primarily in Los Angeles and San Francisco, or New York, it has been like pushing a big rock uphill to gain recognition for the work and artists at Mu and in the Midwest. However, several of the organizational leaders commented to me about the great impression our artists were making. In addition, younger artists often spoke of the feeling of collaborative support and mentorship that they wished were more evident in their communities.

At the final plenary for the Conference, one of the sessions that was mentioned several times was one led by three playwrights from the Midwest who have all worked closely with Mu. Their session, entitled Essential Voices From The Midwest, focused on the issues of the Hmong American and Korean adoptee experiences, which have not been common material for plays elsewhere. Few people from outside the Midwest were aware of their issues and those who attended the sessions were deeply moved by the intensity of the passion that the playwrights – Katie Hae Leo, Katie Ka Vang and Sun Mee Chomet – demonstrated in their talks. Mu produced Sun Mee Chomet’s play Asiamnesia in 2008 (it was selected as the best new play of 2008 by Rohan Preston of the Star Tribune), WTF by Katie Ka Vang this past spring, and will produce Katie Hae Leo’s new play Four Destinies this October. In fact, the three made such an impression together that people started calling them the “Three Sisters” of the Midwest.

Of course, the other Mu artist to make a significant impression was Randy Reyes who is on staff as Mu’s Artistic Associate and Community Liaison. He participated on several panels. Tim Dang, the artistic director of East West Players, congratulated me on how thoughtful and well spoken he was, and that made me realize how much of a leader Randy has become.

For myself, the national conferences and festivals are always a grand opportunity to both see what is happening with the major companies and also see who the new up and coming artists are.  It was simply great to sit among the volunteers and talk while setting up the tickets for the various events. It was exciting to see a whole new generation of artists coming into the field with their own dreams, yet also a desire to understand and learn from the veterans in our community. It was fascinating to hear their perspectives about making the decisions to get into acting, directing or playwriting, from a budding performance artist like Eriko Azuma to an emerging playwright like Joy Regullano who studied theater at UC Berkeley under my old friend and colleague Philip Gotanda. Then of course it was good to meet up with independent artists like Chil Kong, Leslie Ishii, D’Lo and Alison De La Cruz. Plus, I was even able to cast actors for a reading in Philadelphia on July 25^th by meeting Catzie and Victoria Chau at the conference.

Serving on the panel for a session entitled Artistic Directors on Directing and Directors, I got to share my own experiences in directing and working with freelance directors, but also learned so much about how Seema Sueko of Molo’elo Theater in San Diego and Kathy Hsieh of SIS Productions in Seattle approach their work. We are three different companies that share some baseline values about directing and working with directors, but have very different approaches and processes to get there.

I also got a chance to sit on a panel entitled Immigration and Community-Based Writing moderated by Henry Ong. I had the chance to talk about Mu’s Stories program, which is geared to helping Asian American youth engage and express themselves through their own stories by sharing them, writing them down, and finally rehearsing and performing them. It was also great to have Dae Yoon, the Executive Director of the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles, talk about the positive impact theater can have upon their youth, citing a weekend workshop that Mu ran as an example of this impact.

But what would a conference be without the chance to make new connections? In this case, we were able to meet Jonathan Man, a Chinese British director attending as an independent artist. We hit it off so well that Jonathan recently decided to take a side trip to the Twin Cities to work with Mu from Chicago, where he was participating in a directing workshop.  From July 6^th to 8^th he ran a play reading and a workshop for Mu actors.  We are often so busy dealing with survival or the next production that we don’t make such connections, so this was a great opportunity that we were able to take advantage of.  One never knows where such connections will lead, but we can at least dream and find out about the possibilities of working with Asian British theater artists in the next decade.

ConFest 2011 turned out to be both a breakout opportunity for Mu and the Midwest in terms of the national Asian American theater community and a chance to make more valuable connections for the future. We can look back at the immense progress we have made at Mu with pride, but the focus must always be on the future.