News: fu-Gen Season Launch

David Yee

Ten and Beyond

fu-GEN launches while harking to the past

by Jasmine Chen

(photos by Karl Ang)

“Welcome.

The theme for our 10th Anniversary Season is “home”. It’s an appropriate theme, because that’s why we started this little company 10 years ago; not around a single production or the work of a lone artist, but to create a HOME for the Asian Canadian theatre artist. Because we didn’t have one. What we DID have was a brilliant community of independent artists who were creating brave, exciting, risky work… who were challenging the stereotypes that they faced in audition rooms, stages and film sets all across the country… but who were, all the same, without a supportive infrastructure. 

Tonight we’re celebrating our 10th anniversary and also the 30th anniversary of the play “Yellow Fever” by Rick Shiomi, the first ever Asian Canadian play. Later on in our season, we’ll do more readings of Yellow Fever, in the 905 North communities of Markham and Richmond Hill… because apparently people live up there.” - David Yee, Artistic Director of fu-GEN Theatre Company. 

It was raining when I arrived at the Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre in the late afternoon. I was there early to volunteer and help set up the bar that would later serve the many guests celebrating fu-GEN Asian-Canadian Theatre Company's 1oth Anniversary Season Launch. As I walked through the main doors there were men installing a wall, others hanging paintings in the lobby, and a gentleman tuning a piano. Tonight would be the first event to break in the new space! That space being the lobby of Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre (RPACC)and the Aki Studio, run by Native Earth Performing Arts. The actors were already waiting in the lobby, chatting before heading into rehearsal with playwright and director Rick Shiomi, whose play Yellow Fever would be performed later that night. I hadn't known this before, but Yellow Fever was celebrating its 30th Anniversary as the first Asian Canadian play EVER produced in Canada. How appropriate, am I right?! 

Author Terry Woo (Banana Boys) signing

Fast forward a couple hours, the sky had cleared and the party was in full swing. Food and an open bar kept people's hands and mouths full while catching up with one another. With plays that had been produced by company and the first ever anthology of Asian Canadian Plays, Love and Relasianships, on sale, there was truly a sense of history present. Not to mention generations young and old of diverse artists  that have a special connection to the company! This list of artists and friends included people like Derrick Chua, founding Artistic Director of fu-GEN and current Cahoots AD Nina Lee Aquino, Native Earth AD Tara Beagan, Ins Choi, Jean Yoon, casting director Millie Tom, and city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, just to name a few. As 8pm rolled around we were ushered into the Aki Studio to watch the staged reading of Yellow Fever. 

Grace Lynn Kung, Nina Lee Aquino, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee

We took our seats in the brand new black box theatre and were welcomed into the space by fu-GEN board president Nausheen Currington, who beamed as she spoke about how excited she was for the coming season. Next to speak was Artistic Director David Yee. He began by telling us how much he hated giving speeches, which earned a laugh from the audience of many who already knew this about him. But whatever nerves David might have had about delivering his speech quickly vanished as his passion for the company and its mandate took over. We were told about the days before the company existed, where the entire Asian Canadian theatre community could fit at one table in Ho Chow’s place, a restaurant near U of T. Soon after, David met Nina Lee Aquino, Richard Lee and Leon Aureus, who would become the founding executive body of fu-GEN (which stands for Future Generation by the way).

The Native Earth team

“We were all around the same age, had all recently finished school, and were all longing for a place to call ‘home’. The community had grown since I’d first met them, it was larger and younger and chomping at the bit to do more work. We formed with the mandate to be dedicated to the development of professional Asian Canadian theatre artists through the production of new and established works. And everything we did from that moment on was in service of that promise.” 

David continued by outlining just a few of the achievements fu-GEN had accomplished in the last 10 years. These included the Kitchen, a playwright developing unit that has seen works from first draft to full production and GENesis, the first ever Asian-Canadian Theatre Conference and Festival. He also talked about the coming season; which includes the Fire Gala Fundraiser, the Canadian Premiere of Ching Chong Chinaman by Lauren Yee, and the 10th Annual Potluck Festival. 

When wrapping up his speech David went on to say,

Rick Shiomi (standing)

“This has become a very long speech. And it wasn’t very funny, I apologize for that. 

I guess what I’m trying to say with all this is that ‘home’, the meaning of ‘home’, the feeling and prospect of ‘home’… is no small thing for me. It’s not something I take lightly, or a word I throw around with any degree of relative ease. It’s always a weighted word for me, a troubling word, it just never made a lot of sense to me, in any context. But when I think about fu-GEN and the last ten years and everything that’s been done and all that’s ahead, and this community of artists I have around me, how many of them have come through our doors and what they’ve done, what we’ve all done… it’s actually the only word that makes sense.”

Millie Tom, Casting Director and Derrick Chua 
Producer and Entertainment Lawyer

David went on to introduce Rick Shiomi, whom he called the “Godfather of Asian Canadian Theatre”. Rick took the stage and congratulated David and the rest of the community for the incredible work that has been done in the last 10 years. He talked about his own experience founding and running his own Asian American Theatre, MU Performing Arts in Minnesota, which is celebrating its 2oth Anniversary this year! With his warm smile and twinkling eyes he went on to say, “Don't worry, the next 10 years get better!”. 

As Rick left the stage, the lights went down and we waited eagerly for what was to come. Yellow Fever may be 30 years old, but this noir comedy is still just as bitingly clever and fresh as it was at the time of its first production. It also helps when you have a stacked cast! Ins Choi played Sam Shikaze, a hardboiled detective assigned to solve the mysterious disappearance of the Cherry Blossom Queen. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I will watch Ins read a phone book, he's that good. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee who was nominated for a Dora Award for his role in Kim's Convenience, played Captain Kadota. Zoe Doyle played the smart and sexy reporter Nancy Wing. Tony Nappo and Richard Zeppieri played corrupt cops Lieutenant Jameson and Sgt.Mackenzie. To top it all off, Brenda Kamino reprised her role as Rosie from thirty years ago in the original Toronto production (1983)! Even with scripts in hand, these experienced actors captured Shiomi's droll humour and social commentary with panache. Even stage directions were read with gusto. Ins would add his own sound effects, like the telephone, “RING. RING. Three rings... .” Needless to say, it was a fun night. One filled with joy, community, and pride. 

Kristyn Wong-Tam, City Councillor (centre)

“It took 10 years to build this far, and we’ve still got so much further to go… but your support, your presence at our productions, our events (like this one), fundraisers, your facebook likes, your retweets, your faces staring back at us from the stage… it means the world to us. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you. Our audiences, our funders, our mentors, our friends, our protégés, our partners-in-crime, our allies when we are at war. Thank you. For everything.” - David Yee