"Real life... it always demands an original response."
From Velina Hasu Houston's The
Peculiar and Sudden Nearness of the Moon
P R O D U C T I O N S A N
D P U B L I C A T I O N S
"Calling Aphrodite," International City Theatre, Long Beach, California, 2007.
T H E
T H E A T R E
Commissions
2011-2012 Los Angeles Opera, Jonah's Faith, with composer Alexander Prior
2008-2010 Silk Road Theatre Project produced in association with the Goodman
Theatre, The DNA Trail, A
Collaboration with David Henry Hwang, Philip Kan Gotanda, Elizabeth Wong, Shishir
Kurup, Lina Patel, and Jamil Khoury (Houston's play Mother Road)
2008-Present Los Angeles Opera, The
One-Ten Project
2006-2007 Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Messy Utopia, a collaborative theatre project with Naomi Iizuka,
Aldo Velasco, Aditi Kapil, and Seema Sueko. (Houston's play, Bloody Hell (Or) I Wouldn't Change A Thing
About You, Liz Engelman, Dramaturg)
2004 American Repertory Dance Company, Dreams, Structuring of collage of works
by Langston Hughes, Hu Shih and Shushanig Gourghinhain, and Los Angeles
students
2002 Sacramento Theatre Company, Something
to Say, Kids Write Plays/The American Dream Project
1998 The Jewish Women's Theatre Project, The
Lotus of the Sublime Pond
1997 The Mark Taper Forum, Tell Her That
You Saw Me
1996 Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation New Generations Play Project/
Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Hula Heart
1996 The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts of the State of Hawaii,
Kennedy Theatre, Ikebana (Living Flowers)
(formerly Cultivated Lives)
1994 Asia Society, Japanese and
Multicultural at the Turn-of-the-Century, National Public Radio
Broadcast
1993 Cornerstone Theatre Company, Snowing
Fire
1988 Manhattan Theatre Club, Broken
English (aka The Melting Plot)
1985 The Mark Taper Forum, The Legend of
Bobbi Chicago
The Plays [For full list of productions see author's curriculum vitae; click on PDF link below.]
Tea
Bliss
The Last Resort
The Territory of Dreams
A Spot of Bother
Cymru Am Byth (Wales Forever)
Asa Ga Kimashita (Morning Has Broken)
American Dreams
Kokoro (True Heart)
The Peculiar and Sudden Nearness of the Moon
Calling Aphrodite
Waiting for Tadashi
Necessities
Ikebana (Living Flowers)
Shedding the Tiger
Calligraphy
The Eyes of Bones
Thirst
The Ideal and the Life
My Life A Loaded Gun
Messy Utopia (Collaboration)
The DNA Trail (Collaboration)
The House of Chaos
Kapiolani's Faith
Christmas Cake
Tokyo Valentine
Sentimental Education
ONE-ACT PLAYS:
The Matsuyama Mirror Hula Heart Civilization Mister Los Angeles
It
A Dog's Life
Eight O'clock
Great Sex
Japanese and Multicultural at the
Turn-of-the-Century
Tell Her That You Saw Me
The Lotus of the Sublime Pond
Free Verse
Amazing Grace
Point of Departure
Amerasian Girls
Father, I Must Have Rice
Petals and Thorns
The Confusion of Tongues
Kumo Kumo PLAYS IN PROGRESS:
Cave of the Virgins
The Tongues of Men and Angels Eight Months
Disenchanted Christmas
Natural Selection (sequel to Civilization)
OPERA
Jonah's Faith (with Alexander Prior)
P
U B L I C A T I O N S
Kokoro (True Heart), Dramatists' Play Service, 2011
Mister
Los Angeles and essay innew edition of Playwriting
Master Class, Edited by Michael Wright, Focus Press, 2010
The
Eyes of Bones in Living
and Writing on America's Left Coast: Contemporary Women's Plays,
Murasaki Books, 2010
Hiking
the DNA Trail: 7 Playwrights Reckon with Science's Most Personal
Revelations, American Theatre magazine, March 2010
Outstanding
Women's Monologues, Dramatists Play Service, 2010
Best
Women's Monologues of 2008, Smith and Kraus, 2009
Contributor, Japanese War Brides Experiences: Immigration, Gender, and
Ethnicity, Edited by Fumiteru Nitta, University of Hawaii Press, 2010,
Chapter Title: "Matsuyama Daughter: Japanese War Brides in
Kansas"
Contributor, Crossing the Ocean: A New Look at the History of Japanese Picture
Brides and Japanese War Brides, Edited by Noriko Shimada, Akashi Shoten,
Tokyo, 2009
"Writer's
Block" Busters: 101 Exercises to Clear the Dead Wood and Make Room
for Flights of Fancy, Smith and Kraus, 2008
Essay, "Matters of the Heart: To Be A Dragonslayer," in Choice: True Stories of Birth,
Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion, Edited
by Karen Bender and Nina de Gramont, MacAdam/Cage Publishing Inc., 2007
"Out of the Margins: A national
theatre conference in Los Angeles galvanizes Asian-American forces," American Theatre magazine, October 2006
Tea,
Dramatists Play Service, 2006
Green
Tea Girl in Orange Pekoe Country: Selected Plays of Velina Hasu Houston,
Edited by Peggy Shannon, Murasaki Books, 2012
Ritsumeikan Daigaku Faculty of Law Journal,
Kyoto, Japan, Essay, "The Ties That Bind: The Honor of
Friendship," 2005
Alexander Street Press, Tea, Kokoro, Asa Ga Kimashita, American Dreams, Necessities, The Ideal
and the Life, Calling Aphrodite, Waiting for Tadashi, The Matsuyama Mirror,
Hula Heart, Ikebana, The Peculiar and Sudden Nearness of the Moon,
2005 and ongoing
Perishable Theatre Anthology of Women's Plays
2004-2005, Critical Essay Response regarding J.C. Samuels' How High the Moon?
The
Peculiar and Sudden Nearness of... Color (Do You Have a Race and Do You Know
What It Really Is?) Notes on My Play "The Peculiar and Sudden
Nearness of the Moon," www.newpowerplays.com,
Multirace and the Future, an essay in The
Multiracial Child Sourcebook, Edited by Matt Kelley and Maria P.P. Root,
2003
"Notes from a Cosmopolite" (essay)
in The Color of Theater: A Critical
Sourcebook in Race and Performance, Edited by Roberta Uno with Lucy San
Pablo Burns, Continuum International Publishing, 2002
Kokoro
(True Heart) in Political
Plays of the 1990s, Edited by Allan Havis. University of Illinois Press,
2002
"The Soprano's Father" and "Green Tea Girl in Orange Pekoe Country" (poetry), Intersecting Circles: Voices of Hapa
Women in Poetry and Prose, Edited by Marie Hara and Nora Okja Keller Cobb,
Bamboo Ridge Press, 2000
This
Is the Key (play), Mister
Los Angeles (play), and playwriting essay in Playwriting Master Class, Edited by Michael Wright, Heinemann
Publishing, 2000
Tea
(play) excerpt, Monologues
for Women of Color, Edited by Roberta Uno, Routledge, 2000
Tea
(play) excerpt and essay in Yellow
Light: the Flowering of Asian American Arts, Edited by Amy Ling,
Ph.D., Temple University Press, 1999, in the series Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David
Palumbo-Liu, and Michael Omi
Essay in Why
We Write: Personal Statements and Photographic Portraits of 25 Top
Screenwriters, Edited and Photographed by Lorian Tamara Elbert, Los
Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1999
American
Dreams (play) excerpted in Encounters: People of Asian Descent in the Americas, Edited
by Roshni Rustomji-Kerns with Rajini Srikanth and Leny Mendoza Strobel, Rowman
& Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1999
Foreword of Asian American Culture on Stage: The History of The East West
Players by Yuko Kurahashi, Ph.D., Garland Publishing, Inc., A member of the
Taylor & Francis Group, as part of the series, Asian Americans: Reconceptualizing Culture, History, Politics,
Edited by Franklin Ng, 1999
Hula
Heart (play) in Eight Plays for Children: The New Generation Project, Edited
by Coleman A. Jennings, University of Texas Press, 1999
Tea
(play), ALIVE & ALOUD: Radio Plays, L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre
Series, 1999
"'Green Tea Girl': Meditations on
Tea and Culture" (essay) Pacific
Citizen, Holiday Issue, 1998
"One Eighth, One Quarter, One
Half: A Roundtable Discussion by Multiethnic Asians Lisa See, Aimee Liu
and Velina Hasu Houston," Yolk
Magazine, 1998
"Uphill Fight for Asian American Plays,"
Counterpunch Op-ed, Calendar section, Los
Angeles Times, September 15, 1997, pp. F1-F3.
But
Still, Like Air, I'll Rise: New Asian American Plays,
Edited by Velina Hasu Houston, Foreword by Roberta Uno, Temple University
Press, 1997, in the series Asian American
History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, and Michael
Omi
No
Passing Zone: Aesthetic and Discursive Voices of Multiethnic Asians.
Edited by Velina Hasu Houston and Teresa Kay Williams, Amerasia Journal, Special Edition, 1997
As
Sometimes in a Dead Man's Face (play) in Asian American Drama: Nine Plays from
the Multiethnic Landscape, edited by Brian Nelson, Applause Theatre Books,
1997
Tea
(play) in Plays for Actresses, Edited
by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold, Vintage Books- Random House, 1997
"To the Colonizer Goes the Spoils:
Amerasian Progeny in Vietnam War Films and Owning Up to the Gaze" (essay),
No Passing Zone: Aesthetic and
Discursive Voices of Multiethnic Asians, Amerasia Journal, Special Edition, 1997
Tea
(play) in American Journey: The Asian
American Experience, a CD-ROM publication, Primary Resource Media and the
University of California at Los Angeles, 1996
"Home" (essay), Homemaking: Women Writers and the
Politics and Poetics of Home, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996
The
Matsuyama Mirror (play) in Short Plays for Young Actors. Edited by Craig Slaight and
Jack Sharrar. Smith and Kraus, 1996
"The Future of Asian America is
Multiethnic Asian," Yolk Magazine,
1996
"Kokoro:
Mind and Heart, East and West," article, Japan Society Newsletter, April,
1994
"Multiculturalism and the American
Theatre: Out of the Hysteria and into the Realities," The Dramatists Guild Newsletter, "A
Conversation With..." front-page column, February, 1993
Image
Ethics, and Social Responsibility, a publication of
Independent Feature Project-West, October, 1992, with Houston's comments
excerpted from an October, 1990, panel discussion, of the same title held at
Warner Bros. Studio, Burbank, California
The
Politics of Life: Four Plays by Asian American Women,
Edited by Velina Hasu Houston with an introduction and commentaries by
Velina Hasu Houston, Temple University Press, 1992, in the series Asian American History and Culture,
edited by Sucheng Chan. This is the first anthology focusing on the
dramatic literature of Asian American women.
Asa
Ga Kimashita (Morning Has Broken) (play) in The Politics of Life: Four Plays by
Asian American Women, Edited by Velina Hasu Houston with an introduction and commentaries by Velina Hasu Houston, Temple University Press,
1992
Tea
(play) in Unbroken Thread, the second
anthology of Asian American feminist dramatic literature; Editor, Roberta Uno;
University of Massachusetts Press, 1993
"The Past Meets the Future: A
Cultural Essay," Amerasia Journal,
1991
"Amerasian Girl" (poem), in GIDRA 1990, twentieth anniversary issue,
1990
Tea
(play), in Plays In Process; Volume
Nine, Number Five; Theatre Communications Group, Inc., New York, 1989
"Amerasian Girl" (poem), in Echoes IV; Impressions, Inc., Peace
Press, Long Beach, California; 1984
"Song of an Ainoko Granddaughter"
(poem), in Echoes IV; Impressions,
Inc., Peace Press, Long Beach, California; 1984
"The First Japanese Foreign Male"
(poem), Poets' Voices 1984: Social
Issues by Contemporary Poets, San Diego Poet's Press; Editors:
Kathleen Iddings, Thomas L. Gayton, Ric Solano, Ron O. Salisbury; San Diego,
1984
"The Challenge of Diversity for African
Americans and Asian Americans," The
Multiracial Asian Times, 1991
"Interracial and Multi-ethnic Studies in
California College and University Courses," California Sociological Association Newsletter
"On Being Mixed Japanese," Pacific Citizen, December 1986
"Song of an Ainoko Granddaughter," Pacific Citizen, December 1986
"For My Japanese Grandfather," Pacific Citizen, December 1986
"Amerasian Girl," Pacific Citizen, December 1986
"I Was Japanese Before It Was Cool"
(poetry) Pacific Citizen, December
1986
