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?!
