 | |
| Established | 1989 (1989) |
|---|---|
| Founder | Mia Katigbak; Richard Eng |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Coordinates | 40°45′N 73°59′W / 40.75°N 73.99°W / 40.75; -73.99 |
| Website | naatco |
The National Asian American Theater Company (NAATCO) is a non-profit theater company based in New York City. Founded by Mia Katigbak and Richard Eng the company produces and performs classics of western theatre, often with color-blind casting. Alongside the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and Ma-Yi Theater Company, the three organisations founded the National Asian American Theater Festival.
History
[edit]Founded in 1989 in New York City by Mia Katigbak and Richard Eng, the National Asian American Theater Company (NAATCO) aimed to produce and perform classics of western theater with all Asian American casts.[1] Works by Shakespeare, Moliere and Chekhov were targeted and the aim was to provide experience in major roles for the casts - many Asian American actors had reported that access to these kinds of parts was a major career barrier.[1]
NAATCO was one of three Asian American theatre companies that conceived of and produced the first National Asian American Theater Festival, which was first held in 2007.[2] The other two co-founding organisations were Pan Asian Repertory Theatre and Ma-Yi Theater Company; the three organisations had first begun work on the festival in 2003.[2] As part of the inaugural festival NAATCO re-staged Falsettoland by Alan Muraoka, which had been a popular production for the company in 1998.[2]
In 2020 NAATCO began a series of regional partnerships, with the aim of staging classic American or western plays with all Asian American casts, or adapting works by Asian American playwrights.[3]
Selected productions
[edit]NAATCO staged Our Town by Thornton Wilder in 1994.[4] The production was praised for its casting by The Record, particularly the depiction of the character Emily by Yumi Iwama which added nothing "but beauty to this great and beautiful play".[4] In 1995 NAATCO staged The School for Wives by Moliere, where Arloa Reston and Daniel Dae-Kim were praised for their performances as Agnes and Horace respectively.[5] The same year the company staged A Midsummer Night's Dream.[6] The 1998 production of Falsettoland was praised for its colorblind casting.[7]
Othello was staged by the company in 2000: in it Tess Lina was praised for her role as Emilia and the New York Times commented "how clear the plot is and how swift its development if all the baggage of race we tend to bring to it is simply left at the door".[8] In 2004 NAATCO staged a production of Antigone where Mia Katigbak played the ruler Creon.[9]
The 2015 production of Charles Francis Chan Jr.'s Exotic Murder Mystery was praised for its use of enlarged images of performers in both whiteface and yellowface.[10][11] The same year the company staged Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets, where Asian American actors played a Jewish American family in the 1930s.[12] The company premiered the play Sagittarius Ponderosa by MJ Kaufman off-broadway in 2016, which used traverse staging and was directed by Ken Rus Schmoll.[13][14][15] In 2018, NAATCO staged Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3.[16] Condensed into two three-hour plays by Stephen Brown-Fried, the play was reviewed by the New York Times as "fast-paced and gripping" with "an unusually lucid staging".[16]
In 2022 NAATCO collaborated with Public Theater to commission and produce a series of monologues by Asian American writers that were specifically written for Asian American performers over the age of 60.[17] The following year NAATCO co-produced Public Obscenities by Shayok Misha Chowdhury - a play based around a documentary into queer dating in India.[18]
Legacy
[edit]The National Asian American Theatre Company has been praised for its colorblind casting, one example being its "photo-negative" casting for their production of Othello in 2000.[6] This approach, in particular to the company's portrayal of Jewish drama, has been described as a strategy that "attests to the premise that talented and well-trained actors can play a plethora of roles that may or may not correspond with their appearance".[19] This has drawn comparison with Group Theatre's productions.[19]
Speaking on the company's 25th anniversary,[20] Mia Katigbak described the company's achievements in the following way:
It's a milestone, just for the shear fact that we've survived that long. I believe we have the fortunate reputation of doing good work, no matter what we do, and that's a good thing.
References
[edit]- 1 2 Lee, Esther Kim (2019-07-29), "Asian American Theater and Drama from the 1960s to the 1990s", in Lynch, Deidre Shauna (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (1 ed.), Oxford University PressNew York, NY, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.891, ISBN 978-0-19-785147-0, retrieved 2026-06-09
- 1 2 3 Felton-Dansky, Miriam (2024-08-20). "So Many Players". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- ↑ "Theater partnership aims to foster inclusion". The New York Times. 2020-02-07. ProQuest 2902851274.
- 1 2 Tallmer, Jerry (1994-07-29). "'Our Town' as a Nineties melting pot". The Record. p. 85. Retrieved 2026-07-04.
- ↑ Gelder, Lawrence Van (1995-07-08). "THEATER REVIEW; Middle-Aged Machinations Frustrated by Young Love". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- 1 2 Vaughan, Alden T.; Vaughan, Virginia Mason (2012-04-05). Shakespeare in America. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-956638-9.
- ↑ Han, Sally (1998-07-14). "Funny, They Don't Look Jewish". Daily News. p. 30. Retrieved 2026-07-04.
- ↑ Bruckner, D. J. R. (2000-02-17). "THEATER REVIEW; New Clarity From a Colorblind 'Othello'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- ↑ Doyle, Brian Leahy. "A 21st-century Production of Antigone in the Bronx." Didaskalia 6.3 (2006).
- ↑ Joo, Rachael Miyung; Lee, Shelley Sang-Hee (2018-06-12). A Companion to Korean American Studies. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-33533-2.
- ↑ Soloski, Alexis (2015-11-10). "Review: With 'Charles Francis Chan Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery,' Lloyd Suh Takes on a Legacy". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-07-04.
- ↑ Cook, Amy (2018-02-28). Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-05376-6.
- ↑ "Play About Trans Identity in America Gets NYC Reading | Playbill". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2020-11-24. Retrieved 2026-01-13.
- ↑ "Review: In 'Sagittarius Ponderosa,' New Self Confronts Old (Published 2016)". 2016-11-01. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21. Retrieved 2026-01-13.
- ↑ Medalle, Rovie Herrera (2016-02-24). "Breaking Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes on the American Stage: National Asian American Theatre Company's 25th Anniversary: Interview with Mia Katigbak (co-founder and artistic producing director of NAATCO)". Miranda (12). doi:10.4000/miranda.8330. ISSN 2108-6559. Archived from the original on 2026-02-08. Retrieved 2026-01-13.
- 1 2 Collins-Hughes, Laura (2018-09-01). "Six gripping hours of death, betrayal and greed: The bloody history play gets a fast-paced and lucid staging". The New York Times. ProQuest 2611688208.
- ↑ "A Theatrical Tapestry at the Public Theater Explores Age and Asian American Identity". Hyperallergic. 2022-02-23. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
- ↑ Salam, Maya. "Transgender Activist Who Made History in Bangladesh Is Onstage in New York." International New York Times, 4 Apr. 2023.
- 1 2 Brenner, Lisa S. (2014). "Playing Jewish at the National Asian American Theatre Company". Theatre Topics. 24 (2): 89–102. doi:10.1353/tt.2014.0017. ISSN 1086-3346.
- ↑ Ang, Walter (2018-09-13). Barangay to Broadway: Filipino American Theater History. Walter Ang. ISBN 978-0-9996865-2-2.