presented at the Ruben Museum, April/May 2010

A project of The Foundry Theatre's "NYC… Just Like I Pictured It," a performance series of five new works and a musical that re-imagine the city we live in.

In collaboration with Adhikaar and the Nepali immigrant community, writer/director Aya Ogawa and designerJeanette Yew create an invented festival for the future in which past stories of injustice and violence unfold to their imagined resolutions. Ritual, song and dance collide with technology in this bilingual performance that posits hope for equity and equality in the community that is New York.

You have to visit your sick mother, fire your entire office, and you have no one to turn to.
What are you worried about?
Lush video and sound design are woven into movement in this journey through geography, fantasy and the economy.

And spam. Lots of spam.

A play with multimedia (in development)
Written & Directed by Aya Ogawa

–> Presented as a work-in-progress excerpt in February 2009 at the Performance MIX Festival

Video & Lights by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew

Sound by Rich Kim

Featuring Drae Campbell, Ryan Edwards, Ikuko Ikari, Joan Jubbett,
Eunjee Lee, Alanna Medlock, Jason Quarles, Sophia Remolde, Adam Rihacek

Press:

…it was awesome, even in its un-doneness… -- cultureisnotdead.blogspot.com [read original article]

–> Presented as a reading in September 2007 as part of PRELUDE ’07

Featuring Maha Chehlaoui, Donlin Foreman, Jennifer Emerson Foreman, Judson Kniffen, Alanna Medlock, Banaue Miclat, Ryutaro Mishima, Tony Roach, Sophia Skiles, Deborah Wallace & Nancy Wu.

A woman swept up in the rhythms of a foreign city discovers that she can go through life without ever uttering a word. A dying mother reveals a deep secret that sets her son off on a mysterious journey of nostalgia for the unknown. Art and entertainment: cultures clash in a theater producer’s office and the translator bears the brunt. An explosion of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in four languages turns on its players. multiple disparate stories of disjoint and disconnection portray the convergence of dream and reality in a globalized world.

This precursor to oph3lia was shown as a workshop at New York Theater Workshop’s 4th Street Theater in August 2005.

Script & Direction Aya Ogawa
Lights Charles Foster
Set Eric Hildebrandt
Sounds Rich Kim
Costumes Clint Ramos
Projections Chi-Wang Yang
Production Assistant Yukako Yamazoe
Light Board Op Hamilton Boardman

Featuring:
Drae Campbell, Jenny Emerson, Connie Hall, Gina Hirsch, Ikuko Ikari, Peter Lettre, Alanna Medlock, Magin Schantz, Dario Tangelson, Saori Tsukada, Aaron Mostkoff Unger

Based on Yasunari Kawabata's novel Beauty and Sadness, this play reorients the sordid story of a torrid love affair between a 16-year-old girl and a writer twice his age. Unresolved tragedies of the past echo into the future.

written and directed by Aya Ogawa. Produced at Clemente Soto Velez, Latea Theater in May 2003.

Starring: Drae Campbell, Karmenlara Ely, Erika Hildebrandt,  Peter Lettre, Magin Schantz, Dario Tangelson, Saori Tsukada, Aaron Unger, Deborah Wallace.

Press:

a girl of 16:

work of visual beauty and formal originality… notable for the writer-director’s stunning visual sense, her often adept hand at dialogue, and her gift for creating natural moments between actors in the midst of strange, jarring rhythms. -- Theatremania.com  [read original article]

Writer-director Aya Ogawa … has interwoven often-poetic language with often-mesmerizing scenes that play upon the mind while you watch. -- Offoffoff.com [read original article]

…the highly creative ”Girl of 16” catches the eye… -- The New York Times [read original article]

During an unnamed war, a soldier is captured on enemy territory and kept like a dog, chained in the backyard, and tended to by two young girls. A one-act play that challenges ideas of sanctioned violence through the lens of childhood.

Presented at Soho Rep as part of Summer Camp 1999. Directed by Ron Russell.

Presented at HERE as part of Theatres Against War (T.H.A.W.) in 2002.

A 10-minute play about a man who reads palms and a woman who is afraid of frogs.  Winner at the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival and finalist for Humana's 10-minute play contest.