Unstaged Voices: A Theatrical Reading of "TEA" by Velina Hasu Houston
- When
- Tuesday, November 10, 20266:00 PM – 8:00 PM ESTAdd to calendarGoogle Calendar
- Where
- Performance StudioOpen in Maps
- Hosted by
- Department of Fine & Performing Arts
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About
A public play reading series dedicated to rediscovering works by women that have been overlooked, underproduced, or lost to history. Join us as we gather to read, listen, and discuss plays that deserve to be heard again.
A play reading is an informal gathering where participants read a script aloud without sets, costumes, or staging. No experience is required—anyone is welcome to read a role or simply listen and join the conversation.
About the play:
"TEA" is about four women who come together to clean the house of a fifth after her tragic suicide upsets the balance of life in their small Japanese immigrant community in the middle of the Kansas heartland. The spirit of the dead woman returns as a ghostly ringmaster to force the women to come to terms with the disquieting tension of their lives and find common ground so that she can escape from the limbo between life and death, and move on to the next world in peace—and indeed carve a pathway for their future passage. Set in Junction City, Kansas, 1968; and netherworlds.
About the playwright:
Velina Hasu Houston is an internationally celebrated writer with over 41 writing commissions. Houston's literary career began professionally Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club, expanding globally. Her play "Tea" was designated a theatre canon classic by HERO Theatre, Los Angeles, and Roundabout Theatre Company, New York, and is considered the most-produced play about the Japanese female experience in the U.S. Since its inception in 1982, the play has enjoyed ongoing production and given opportunities to countless Asian American actresses to play meaningful, non-stereotypical roles.
Ethnically non-binary, Houston is Japanese, African American, Blackfoot Native American, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Korean.
She founded graduate playwriting studies at the School of Dramatic Arts, University of Southern California, where she is a presidentially appointed USC Distinguished Professor of Theatre in Dramatic Writing and USC Resident Playwright. For thirty-one years, she served as Director of MFA Dramatic Writing and Head of Undergraduate Playwriting. (Excerpt from (link below)