Kumu Kahua Theatre Announces the 50th Season Festival of Plays

Kumu Kahua Theatre has announced their entire 50th Season of productions will be available to watch free of charge - with a subtitle option - for one weekend in August 2021.

On the morning of August 7th, 2021, a playlist of the 50th season of Kumu Kahua Theatre will be available to watch on YouTube until midnight on August 8th. During those two days, viewers will have access to Moses Goods' Lovey Lee, Lee Cataluna's Aloha Attire, Hannah Ii-Epstein's Aloha Fry-day, Daniel A. Kelin II's other: a micro-story, and Susan Soon He Stanton's Untitled TMT Project. A closed-captioned option will be available on all productions.

"Since the pandemic began, devices have tuned in to watch Kumu Kahua Theatre's work more than 30,000 times" says Managing Director Donna Blanchard. "We are so grateful for our expanding community! We've offered most of this content free of charge and feel the growth of our audience proves that there are people anxious to absorb our work that is by and about the people of Hawaiʻi if we remove the barriers of finance and geography. And live theatre should not only belong to those with disposable income, available transportation, and the ability - physically or emotionally - to enter a building in downtown Honolulu."

This 50th Season Festival will be free to watch. The Board of Directors and staff of the theatre ask that their patrons tune in, share with their friends and family, and those who are able, support the work of Kumu Kahua Theatre by making a donation to the theatre. Donation links will be included on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/KumuKahuaTheatre) and the theatreʻs website (https://www.kumukahua.org/).

The 50th season of Kumu Kahua Theatre consists of five plays, each one taking place in one decade the theatre has been in existence.

These are the shows included in the festival:

Lovey Lee, by Moses Goods

1970s

ABOUT THE PLAY:

A Hotel Street prostitute's harrowing journey chronicles the highs and lows of 1970s life on the outside of convention.

Hawai`i in the 1970s. A time of reclamation, discovery and pride. For Lovey Lee, a young queer Hawaiian, the 70s is about finding a place where they can just be. With Hawai`i's cultural renaissance at its peak and with the sexual liberation movement booming throughout the nation, there is perhaps no better time to explore life, identity and freedom. But the journey of any brave pioneer is often complicated and fraught with challenges. In this coming of age story, Lovey finds themself journeying from their safe island home to the invigorating streets of San Francisco to the dark alleys of Hotel Street and back again in their search for place.

Playwright's Bio:

Moses Goods (he/him/his) is one of Hawai`i's most prominent theatre artists. Originally from the island of Maui and now based in Honolulu he has traveled nationally and internationally performing his original work to a wide range of audiences. His body of work ranges from full length plays to theatrical storytelling pieces most of which are strongly rooted in Native Hawaiian culture.

Moses' extensive body of work includes Duke a touring one-man-show about surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku, Paniolo: Stories and Songs of the Hawaiian Cowboy and My Name is ʻŌpūkahaʻia a piece that recently toured for a month throughout New England.

Moses is also the founder and artistic director of `Inamona Theatre Company, an organization dedicated to reintroducing the native stories of Hawai`i to the community. `Inamona is a traditional Hawaiian relish made from the roasted kernel of the kukui (candlenut). It is sprinkled sparingly over mea `ai (nourishing food) to gently enhance the natural flavor. Moses believes that no matter how skilled the storyteller, his (or her) work is merely a condiment to the greater sustenance. The true "mea `ai" are the stories that have come before us, the stories of our ancestors.

Aloha Attire, by Lee Cataluna

1980s

ABOUT THE PLAY:

Lee Cataluna takes advantage of the unique platform of "live, digital theatre" with this tribute to 1980s Hawai'i, framed by the clothes we wore.

Your invitation to the 80s includes the vaguely defined dress code: "aloha attire."

What does that even mean? In this play, written specifically for online production, we will examine classic aloha attire pieces like the shorty-mu'u, dressy slippers, gold-dipped maile leaf pendants, and the 17 ways to wrap a pareu. Let your fashion consultant take you through stories of what we wore, what it meant, and why it was so awesome.

PLAYWRIGHT'S BIO:

Lee Cataluna (She/her/hers) Lee Cataluna's first play, Da Mayah, broke box office records at Kumu Kahua when it premiered in 1998. Since then, she has collaborated with Kumu Kahua on many successful theatrical pieces. Her play Home of the Brave was commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse for the 2018 POP tour. She has written plays for young audiences for Honolulu Theater for Youth. Her play Flowers of Hawai`i was selected for development at Out of the Box Theatrics in NYC and for a workshop at Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles. She is the metro columnist for Honolulu's largest daily newspaper and her book Folks You Meet in Longs was named by Honolulu Magazine as one of the 50 essential books about Hawai`i.
Born and raised in Hawaii and of Native Hawaiian descent, Cataluna has an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside.

Aloha Fry-day, by Hannah Il-Epstein

1990s

ABOUT THE PLAY:
In many indigenous cultures, hallucinogens are inextricably linked to rituals celebrating liminality, their consciousness-expanding qualities can also induce therapeutic emotional release from trauma, but during a night of jubilant euphoria in the 1990s, Sherrie's unresolved memories erupt into tragedy.

The final act in Ii-Epstein's North Shore O`ahu drug trilogy, Aloha Fry-Day follows four friends, Sherrie, Sistah, Lei, and Jason as they meet in the forest to mourn a friend's death by spreading his ashes and taking hallucinogens. What they find on their mission is unexpected as they share stories which are haunted by the ghosts of the `aina.

PLAYWRIGHT'S BIO:

Hannah Ii-Epstein (she/her/hers), born and raised on the North Shore of O`ahu and received her MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage at Northwestern University in 2018. She is a creative writer, dramatist, and Co-Artistic Director of Nothing Without a Company (NWaC). Since 2007, over twenty of her works were produced in Hawai`i by Kumu Kahua Theatre and in Chicago by NWaC, About Face Theatre's Babes on Stage, and Fury Theatre's SAST. In 2016 Hannah and her play, Not One Batu, was honored by Hawai`i State Theatre Council Po`okela Award. In 2018, in Chicago Not One Batu was Reader and Jeff Recommended. In 2019 her short film, Redesign Your Life, won 5 awards, including Best Film Runner Up at 48HFP Chicago. Hannah is a founding member of BearCat Productions and a member of the Hawaiian Civic Club and Aloha Center Chicago.

x other: a microstory, by Daniel A. Kelin, II

2000s

ABOUT THE PLAY:

Told backward in time during the 2000s, featuring the traditional trickster god Letao, other: a micro-story illustrates the challenge of fitting into a new world faced by the Marshallese in Hawai`i, who arrived dreaming of a future for their families.

Notorious trickster Letao shepherds both audience and actors alike through this backward theatrical journey of Abija and Hirlynn, two Marshall Islands youth, who set off for America and face challenges fitting into a frustratingly abstruse world. As the young islanders discover unexpected truths about their island home and encounter cultural misconceptions, Letao dispenses occasional-and occasionally uninvited-insights and interruptions in his enthusiastic craving to showcase the contradictions of humans and humanity.

PLAYWRIGHT'S BIO

Daniel A. Kelin II works for the Honolulu Theatre for Youth and is a theatre artist who travels a great deal. His theatre work has taken him to Asia, across the Pacific and the US. He has had fellowships with Montalvo Arts Center, Theatre for Young Audiences/USA, The Children's Theatre Foundation of America, the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts as well as two Fulbright-Nehru fellowships, the most recent as visiting faculty with the National School of Drama in Tripura, India. Daniel is on the Teaching Artist roster of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and has been affiliated with theatres, schools and youth organizations in American Samoa, the Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, Guam, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. 2019 saw the world premiere at Kumu Kahua Theatre of his solo play Shipwreck'd on the Body Beautiful, which he wrote and performed (and received a local acting award for). His play, Sing a Porpoise Home received a staged reading at NYU and won the Aurand Harris Playwriting award of the New England Theatre Conference. Donnie Q: Knight of the Third Grade was the winner of the Old Miner's Children's Playwriting Contest and received a staged reading at the Noorda Theatre Center for Children and Youth. Other awards have come from the Theatre Communication Group, the US State Department and Partners for the Americas. His most recently published play is A Fool and her Flying Ship while his play The Musical (Mis)Adventures of Goopy and Bagha was honored by a children's theatre in Arizona and performed in South India. He was the founding director of Cabaret Tiki, a playwright collective dedicated to writing and producing plays of five pages or less. As actor/director, Daniel has worked at Kumu on Moa a Mo'i (local directing award), Cockadoodledoo, #iambadatthis, as well as first runs of Watcher of Waipuna and Way of a God.

Untitled TMT Project, by Susan Soon He Stanton

2010s

ABOUT THE PLAY:

In the 2010s the construction of a 30-meter telescope on Mauna Kea was announced. Author Susan Stanton uses theatre to investigate the issues surrounding the TMT protests.

Dramatizing the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope, Untitled TMT Project explores the intersections of the sacred, science, government, capitalism, and tradition. This play draws inspiration from interviews with kia'i, government officials, activists, scientists, and community members, as well as visits to Pu'uhonua o Pu'uhuluhulu Maunakea and observatories. Weaving together hula and oli, original narrative, interviews, and news reports, Untitled TMT Project creates a theatrical space where many different voices and truths can coexist. Untitled TMT Project is a 360° view of the complex cultural and political forces that shape Hawai'i.

PLAYWRIGHT'S BIO:

Susan Soon He Stanton is a playwright, screenwriter, and TV writer from Aiea, Hawai'i. As a playwright, she has written Moana Jr. (book) and Into the Shadowland (book) for Disney Theatrical Group. Plays in Hawaii include we, the invisibles (Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, Leah Ryan FEWW award) Today Is My Birthday (Page 73), Takarazuka!!! (Clubbed Thumb and East West Players), Solstice Party! (Live Source), The Things Are Against Us (Washington Ensemble Theatre), Navigator (Honolulu Theatre for Youth), and at Kumu Kahua: Whatever Happened to John Boy Kihano and #Iambadatthis (Po'okela Award).

She is a two-time Sundance Theater Lab Resident Playwright and was awarded the inaugural Venturous Playwrights Fellowship at the Lark, and a member of New Dramatists. She was a Susan Glaspell Finalist, a runner-up for Southern Rep's Ruby Prize, and received a Susan Smith Blackburn nomination, and a NET Partnership Grant with Satori Group. She has received commissions from Yale Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theater/Crowded Fire, South Coast Repertory and Ensemble Studio Theatre among others.

She is a writer and producer for HBO's award winning series Succession. She has developed projects for Showtime, Netflix, Amazon, and House Productions among others. She has received a Feature Film Development Grant and screenwriting award from the Sloan Foundation. Dress won the audience award at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Bushwick Beats, a multi-writer independent film just opened at the Bushwick Film Festival. Other films include Good House, Dispatched, Same Will and the web series we are the interns. She received a Feature Film Development Grant and a screenwriting award from the Sloan Foundation.

Susan holds a BFA from NYU Tisch's Dramatic Writing program and an MFA from Yale School of Drama, where she received the Audrey Woods Fellowship and the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Scholarship, and was a Yale World Fellow. www.susansoonhestanton.com

 

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