The Courtesan – First Look!

First look at The Courtesan!

Photos by Alex Haslett with lighting by Xander Atwood.

Image 1

Featured Ken Yoshikawa & Michelle Fujii

ARTIST: I wish I understood you. I love painting you. Such magnificence and mystery. There’s a certain harmony about you. I picture you under a starry sky. It often seems to me that the night is even more richly coloured than the day, in the most intense violets, blues and greens—Why are you crying?

COURTESAN: I must go. I don’t belong here.

Image 2

Toru Watanabe & Samson Syharath

A lone WORKER emerges from the projected image, which slowly FADES away. He wears the same clothes as the workers in the painting as he moves against the pummeling rainstorm.

ZIHAO enters wearing a HAZMAT suit and a gas mask. He sees the WORKER and moves in a circle around his dance.

_______________________________________________________
A chance meeting between Van Gogh and his inspiration for the painting The Courtesan. How Japanese art influenced Impressionism with a side trip through time to modern-day China at the site of a devastating chemical blast.

The Courtesan
a new play
by Dmae Roberts
A 75-minute staged reading with projections, sound, movement and featured music/dance by Michelle Fujii and Toru Watanabe of UNIT SOUZOU
and actors Samson Syharath, Elaine Low and Ken Yoshikawa. With creative team Paige Rogers, Xander Atwood and Joe Rogers.

Showtimes:
Jan. 27th @ 7:30pm, Jan. 28th @ 2pm & 7:30pm
at N.E.W. Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont, PDX 97214
Tix: Advance are tickets are $10.
It’s $5 students//Oregon Trail Card (day of show with I.D.)\
Buy tickets for The Courtesan – a new play by Dmae Roberts

http://courtesan.brownpapertickets.com (service fee included)

OR PayPal… (no service fee)

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The Courtesan – A New Play

When time intertwines Japanese art, Impressionism, environmental science, and three cultures…

(left) Kesai Eisan (right) Van Gogh copy

In 2012 I went to the Van Gogh museum and saw all these Japanese prints. I thought it was cool they included them in the museum but then I realized it was Van Gogh copying Japanese wood-block prints as did many artists of the time. Japanese artwork really gave birth to Impressionism. I couldn’t get the image of one painting, The Courtesan, out of my head. I kept imagining the subject of the painting talking to the artist. Then I thought about global influences of art and cultures and how art can help give us hope even through devastation.

So I wrote two different stories across time: one of an artist and his work come to life and the other set at the site of an environmental disaster in modern-day China. The two stories are connect through time and place with an eternal longing for love, connection and inspiration to go on living. I chose nine Japanese prints that inspired Van Gogh and wrote scenes with two different story lines.

(left) Utagawa Hiroshige (right) Van Gogh copy

I gathered the musical talents of UNIT SOUZOU and three gifted actors Samson Syharath, Ken Yoshikawa and Elaine Low (who has been in five of my prior plays). I’ve been writing scenes based on nine of the original Japanese prints Van Gogh and other artists copied.We’ve started rehearsal for a reading with movement, projections, dance and music as well as slides of the paintings, my sound and lighting by Xander Atwood.

It will be  75-minute show at the intimate New Expressive Works on Jan. 27th at 7:30pm and Jan. 28th at 2pm & 7:30pm. Please mark your calendars.

It’s been 14 years since I’ve written a stage play. I  hope you can see this new work.

Here’s more info!
A chance meeting between Van Gogh and his inspiration for the painting The Courtesan. How Japanese art influenced Impressionism with a side trip through time to modern-day China at the site of a devasting chemical spill.

The Courtesan
a new play
by Dmae Roberts
A 75-minute staged reading with projections, sound, movement and featured music/dance by Michelle Fujii and Toru Watanabe of UNIT SOUZOU
and actors Samson Syharath, Elaine Low and Ken Yoshikawa. With creative team Paige Rogers, Xander Atwood and Joe Rogers.

Showtimes:
Jan. 27th @ 7:30pm, Jan. 28th @ 2pm & 7:30pm
at N.E.W. Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont, PDX 97214
Tix: Advance are tickets are $10.
It’s $5 students//Oregon Trail Card (day of show with I.D.)\
Buy tickets for The Courtesan – a new play by Dmae Roberts

http://courtesan.brownpapertickets.com (service fee included)

OR PayPal… (no service fee)

Name of drop-down menu



Stage

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Theatre Diaspora is committed to fiercely celebrating and creatively advocating for the Asian American/Pacific Islander experience through stage work.
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Playwriting

Pompeii
A scene from Volcano Embrace by Dmae Roberts

2001 – THE TIME BETWEEN
AUTHOR of collaborative play for The Grief
Project with Ellen West, Sharon Whitney, Cindy McGean, Vicente Guzman-Orozco and Carmela Lanza-Weil.
Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

2000 – TELL ME, JANIE BIGO
AUTHOR of comedy with music about an orphan Amerasian woman looking for her birth father.
Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

2000 – FORBIDDEN DREAMS
AUTHOR of a short pay about the Forbidden City nightclub in Chinatown San Francisco in 1941.
Produced for the Asian Art Explosion.

1999 – VOLCANO EMBRACE
AUTHOR of stage play about myth and geology of volcanoes as a metaphor for violence.
Produced at Dreams Well Studio.

 

Lady Buddha1997 – LADY BUDDHA
AUTHOR of multimedia stage play about myth and culture of Asian Goddess Kuan Yin.
Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.

1997 – JANIE BIGO
AUTHOR of comedy with music about an orphan Amerasian woman looking for her birth father.
Produced at the Northwest Asian American Theatre, Seattle.

1996 – PICASSO IN THE BACK SEAT
AUTHOR of a stage play about the value of art in America today. Winner of the Oregon Book award.
Produced at Artists Repertory Theatre.

A scene from Lady Buddha by Dmae Roberts         Jamie Bigo
A scene from Janie Bigo by Dmae Roberts

1995 – BREAKING GLASS
AUTHOR of a full-length original play about an interracial family in rural Oregon. Published in an anthology published by Temple University Press and edited by Velina Hasu Houston.
Produced at Portland Repertory Theatre.

1991 – MEI MEI (Stage play)
AUTHOR of a full-length multi-media stage play about a mixed race daughter and Chinese mother’s journey to Taiwan. Produced at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.


Awards

Oregon Book Award and Portland Drama Circle award for Picasso in the Back Seat .
Portland Drama Circle award for Mistress Ford in Merry Wives of Windsor.

 


Acting

Dmae as Lady MacBeth

Dmae as Lady Macbeth

Dmae Roberts has had more than 20 years of experience as a working actress. Her favorite roles include Mary Ann in Escape from Happiness (Artists Repertory Theatre), Lady MacBeth in Macbeth, Hortensio in an all-female Taming of the Shrew, Mistress Ford in Merry Wives of Windsor (Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company), Lizzie Borden in Blood Relations (Profile Theatre) and Fannie in On the Verge (Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center). She has received six nominations and two Drammies (Portland Drama Circle Award) in acting and playwrighting.

 

Dmae as Hortensio

Dmae as Hortensio in Taming of the Shrew