Hawaii - Edward Sakamoto, Lee Catalunha, and Manoa Valley Theatre - Play to Z

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome to play to Zee.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Please rise for this season's introduction song, Fight through It.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Connecticut.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
What's up? Everybody? Welcome and played Um your co host
Justin Borak.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I'm your co host Erica Kuon and Boyle Boy.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
We're taking a short flight from California right on down
to Hawaii. That's how we're going to Hawaii.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Everybody, Hi, Justin's gonna tell you all about it today.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
And by all about it, it means just a small
amount because Hawaii theater scene. That's pretty small. If you
couldn't guess, if you couldn't guess the Hawaii theater scene,
and I bet you. We have listeners in Hawaii and
they're like, it's actually really big. But yeah, I tried.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
This guy sucks at research.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm not good at research. Yeah, we hate him. But yeah,
but before we get into it, how are you.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm good? Yeah, I have Morning voice, me tooching Get Warm,
watching Get Warm.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
I took PTO on a Monday morning so we could
record a couple episodes, and it feels like a Monday morning.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
It does.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
It does feel like.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
So do you want to hear something funny?

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
You know how we have our little like interest song
that plays between our theme song and the and the
show that Yeah, actually starting, I had to take like
City State of New York mandated sexual harassment training. It's
like a video series and you have to click through
it and.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
It's just like cool, there's quizzes, right do they use the.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, I'm watching it and it's like explaining these really
horrendous scenarios that people need to be aware of, and
I'm like, oh my god, what the hell is happening?
Like play my Spotify must have started playing a play
Dozy episode because I keep hearing our intro song and
I'm like, oh, I need to turn it off because
like if you close out of the browse, we have
to restart. It's like this forty five minute hour thing.
And I like can't find out how to get the

(02:03):
music to stop playing, and I'm like kind of worried
my Mac is broken. Yeah, And then I realized they
used the same free song that weird yea so underscoring
like these horrible, horrible, these horrible sexual harassment in the workplaces.
Like I was kind of like, oh, we're about to
start talking about fun plays. Oh no, very strange experience
as soon as I know it was happening.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
I was fine, but that's so weird.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, they had really good taste and uh in free tunes.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
That's it. Here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Also, they had the budget.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was gonna say, we're also at a plant where
like we have the budget enough to like be like, oh,
let's like toss a couple hundred bucks to an artist
and like have the make music.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
I think it should be an electric guitar riff of
the ABC song.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Here's the thing though, I like the music we use
so much.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, but now everyone who has a job in the
state of New York and a restaurant is going to
know that we're the sexual.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Everyone everyone knows.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Can I say something? Yeah, everybody's talking about this talk.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Oh my god, I didn't know people were talking about People.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Have been talking about it, they've been holding space for it.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh my god. Well I'm sorry everybody for just realizing it.
I had no idea.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I didn't know.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, but hey, I completed my training.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah that and that's that's the takeaway. And that's the takeaway.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, we're gonna talk about Hawaii. How are you?

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I'm doing good. I was like what's our banter going
to be about today? And then I was like, what
have we done since the last recording? I was like,
you know, we haven't talked about what one of my
favorite shows I've seen in New York. You and I
saw recently Dead is a Dodo.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
That was such a good show.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
It was so good. Oh my god, So I thought
we talked about it. We saw DEAs a Dodo by
Waka Waka, which is a part of the Under the
Radar Festival here in New York, and it was freaking amazing.
It was so so good. You want to explain it
a little bit.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, So there's a skeleton and the skeleton's best friend
is a Dodo bird who's also a skeleton. They're both
dead and they're like in the underworld, and this dead
skeleton is looking for bones to replace bones of him
that have essentially like they've slipped into the ether. And
so what's happening on stage is that like his bones

(04:05):
disappear and they get replaced in the darkness by this
really sparkly black material that sparkles. Yeah, so you can
see that he's disappearing, but he can still move around.
He's like, oh no, you know, we got to find
these bones. They're disappearing, and there's an evil bone king
with an evil bone princess daughter and they want to
steal all the bone to bones. And then all of
a sudden, Dodo is his best friend, starts to sprout a feather.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
In the same way that like he wakes up and
like loses an arm. Dodo wakes up and like has
a couple of faboms.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
It's coming back to life, man. So he's so dead,
he's disappearing. She started to come back to life, and
they believe that there's hope then that Dodo can return
back to the world of a living yeah, and that
they can go together. And it's just like beautiful and
so sad and melancholy journey. It's also my understanding is
it's part of like multiple pieces that there's essentially a

(04:57):
prequel to this that came out earlier and the.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
More old Jellyfish Girl.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, so there are some recurring characters and stuff like this,
but this is the story of of what did this.
Did the skeleton have a name? No, Okay, I can't
remember what it was.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I think it was also one of the only ones
I can talk.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, stons like and Dot was like so gorgeous, like
such an amazing company, such an amazing ensemble, ensembles also
wearing kind of like glittery blacks and so like they
are the landscape and the architecture of the underworld, moving
their bodies and stuff like that and just like sparkling
in this light. It was stunning.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
They did a good job with like making it feel
like almost performance art and then also feeling like a
star kid music.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
It felt like a musical, Like it felt like.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
This weird kind of in between of like they very
much played into the comedy. They knew that they were
like doing this kind of outrageous story telling through puppets,
but they also like it's the only show in the
art that's made me cry like three times.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Yeah. It was like the type of thing where like
you want to sob really quietly so you don't like,
like we had really good seats. I got a great seat,
and like I had to stifle sobbing, yeah, just so
that like I wouldn't pull any focus from this.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
It was just so good. It was very It was
so good. Yeah, the songs were awesome.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
It like funny, very tender.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
I think like one of my favorite parts was towards You,
because now it's it's gonna be it's closing. So it
closes on February second, and this episode comes down on
like January thirty first, so we're spoiling it for the
last two nights. But I just want to say, like
one of my favorite moments is towards the end, they
get through all these different realms of the world of
different worlds or whatever, and they get to the place

(06:32):
where Dodo can get to the realm of the living,
and like in that last second they find out that
like the boy can't and it's like the saddest and
most heartbreaking moment. But I was talking to someone at
work who I like, I went to work the day
after we saw it. I was like, everyone has to
see this, and like one of my one of the
people in acquisitions went to go see it. And I

(06:54):
was talking to my friend Sarah, and Sarah was like
the moment where like you saw the puppet skeleton boy
go like realize he can't go, and then immediately flip
to like you got this, go for it. Go yeah,
Like it was so heartbreaking, but like beautiful, it was

(07:15):
such a like that was the moment where I like
cried the most. I think it was just so gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
It was like, yeah, it was the most upsetting moment
I've experienced in a theater and a long time. And
it's so visceral and yeah, it was amazing. Yeah, the
voice acting, like all of it is just so good
and yeah and and truly like those performers. Those puppeteers
are athletes, they're so good and poets and singers and
rock stars and it was just like sow.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
I think like each each one of the Waka Waka
on Soon members like played a role, like someone played
like the bone Princess, and someone played like the like
crazy hermit who's married to the big worm creature and like,
but when they weren't playing their like primary characters, they
were like either being a part of another puppet or
they were like being the stage for the puppet to

(08:02):
stand on. Like there was this one guy who I
think played the bone King, and wheneveryone's playing the Bone King,
he would just be fully bent over, yeah, and they
would be using his back as a stage. I was like,
this is crazy, Like they're just going and they just
are not stopping. They're just moving constantly Yeah, it was
so impressive. It was so good. Like I feel like

(08:24):
the puppetry on top of other than I like, I
don't want to spoil everything because this is a chance
people go see it, or is the chance that like
gets remounted or something. But the puppetry on top of
like the Dodo and the human, like the the crazy
reveal towards the end and all that stuff is just
like it's so impressive. It made me. It made me
think like whenever walk a walk, like I followed them

(08:45):
on everything, whenever they do anything, I will be there.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, definitely. And like they have they have like hardcore fans.
So we were in the second row, middle and we
were leaving and I don't know if we were talking
to someone next to us or what, but I was
kind of like yeah, Like they was like, oh, yeah,
this is part of you know, a series, Like there
was one I saw before this, and I had just
checked online because I was familiarizing myself with the company,
and I was like, oh, yeah, like I think that
one's like going to a festival in North Carolina or

(09:10):
something weird. And the people in front of me were
like pros. They were like super fans maybe they're friends
of this, yeah, or maybe they're just super dedicated and
they're like what do you know about this? Like yeah,
like this is how that works. But like that one's done,
I'm like, I think it's coming back. Like there was
like such hype and loyalty in the audience and discussing
like wait, what about the other pieces? What's going on
with this? Like it was incredibly well received?

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Is that reason those two? Those two shout out to
those two fans. It was very I looked up later
walka Walker did a show that ran for like a
week called Made in China, and they were like, were
you up Made in China? That's how you know the
real thing?

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Those are the real things.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
So funny to me, but they were doing bits, but
it was just so funny that they were like so hardcore.
Yeah yeah, but but yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
It was very very good.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
It was so good and it was like it was
the I mean, I I don't see as much puppet
theater as like you do. I always I always think
it's interesting whenever you talk about like why you go
see like theater for young audiences or puppet theater and
stuff you want to talk about it a bit.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Yeah, I have this big brain, this big heavy brain,
jagging my neck down, playing on these shoulders.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Eric hasn't made eye contact with me in years because
her neck is always sagged down, her big brain.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Gray matter dripping out my nose. This things, but this
thing's bursting with.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Thinking, always looks like buggies.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
It's not saying it's a smart brain. I'm just saying
it's really big.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
It's big. It's a medical it's.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
A conditions condition.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Thinks. I like that you you iterate, you said, not
that I'm smart, it's just too big.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Aching. My head is so big it hurts. I'm at
the seams. And something that happens with that is. One
of the big things I like to think about all
the time is theater, And by by that I mean
like storytelling and the mechanisms for it. And I've spent
a lot of my life in education, and a lot
of my life specific education for theater, which means I

(11:03):
have to overanalyze and overthink, and even when I'm seeing
a production for pleasure, I can't help but be thinking
and thinking and thinking, Oh what would I have done differently?
Why didn't this work?

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (11:14):
This works because of this I want to, like I
seek an answer. Yeah, and that's great to an extent,
But the whole point is not the big heavy brain.
The point is the feeling, the body, the spirit, all
of these things working in tandem, but not just big
heavy brain. And so sometimes there have been points where
I can't turn the big heavy brain off, and I

(11:35):
will read and read and read and the scripts aren't hitting.
And I think a lot of this also is to
the mental health. But there's been entire seasons of my
life where like, I can't find a new favorite play,
I can't find monologues or material that I like. I'm
seeing shows and like all I can think about is
what's like kind of off or not working, and you
just kind of feel like a loser, because at the
end of the day, like I can be critical, but

(11:56):
I'm not a critic, and I should be able to
enjoy things. And so when I kind of hit thisatated
sort of pessimistic artistic point, there's two antidotes that like
never fail me. The first is going to see children's theater,
because at least at this point for me, thankfully, I
can't go and see like little kids perform and think like,

(12:16):
well that blowed, like you can't see you can't go
see kids like doing something magical and experiencing it for
the first time and be kind of like that girl objective. Yeah,
like I thought it could be better, Like they kind
of rush the beats, Like you can't even do that.
You can't look at a set that's made out of
construction paper and like costumes that are like made out

(12:37):
of craft supplies and be like, I didn't buy in
you know. Yeah, it completely takes away a lot of
those narratives for myself, and it also it just brings
out my own inner child. The other thing, which is
not dissimilar because it's accomplishing a sense of childhood wonder
is puppet theater specifically puppet theater clowning kind of does
a similar thing, But it's when you go and you

(12:58):
see something that is so magical and whimsical and forces
you to take things as they are, which is what
which is when you go when you see a show
about a skeleton and it's composed out of fake bones
in people's hands, and you just go, Okay, so that's
a skeleton or in the end world.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, like you said, so, well, I feel like it
has a similar like not like performance. I'm trying to
think how to word it correctly, so at the same
performance level as like a kid's play obviously like a
TAA play, but.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
It does have the same like it's simplified.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's simplified. That's it. It's it's it's like the story
and the beats are brought to a place where, like
I think, it's hard to just look at it from
an objective standpoint because you're looking at something that is
meant to be so like when I was watching our
friend our friend Grace saw the show and we got
drinks with her after and she says something so smart.

(13:52):
She says something that like hit me really well, which
is like if like a Pixar movie on stage, and
as someone who came from like an animation background, like
watching Got It a Dodo, it did feel like the
closest animation has I've ever seen on a stage before
shadow puppetry.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Then the part of your brain that likes animation with
nuts over that immediately.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Reached out to some friends that I worked with in
the animation world like the next day and was like, yeah,
I saw the show in New York. If you're here,
you should see it because it made me lose my mind.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
It's like my best analogy is it's like reducing fractions
so big, heavy, sopping wet coming out of my ears
brain is like, you know, it's like saying one hundred
over a million, and then you see something like this
and it just like moves the decimal over and it's like, oh,
you know instead of it just like reduces the fraction. Yeah,
simple storytelling. You go with it. Like we both stifled

(14:41):
a stop a stop a sob.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
A stop stop, which is a stabbing sky.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
And we did it because there was a moment that
a best friend couldn't go with their best friends. Yeah,
and they realized it.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
It was so sad and they.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Had to fly and like it was so simple. These
are not characters that have immense backstories, like no, it
was just this simple moment of.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Garden almost no backstory.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
I love you, I can't go with you. I love you,
I can't go with you is a genre for like
a fourth of place that exists. Yeah, and they just
played it out with their bodies. Yeah and and so yeah,
it's this great simplification that just refreshes my brain. It's
like it takes it out of my dome and it
huffs and it cleans it off on a shirt like
glasses and so yeah, if you're someone who can relate

(15:25):
to what I'm saying at all, and I do think
it's a specific type of suffering for people in academia too,
reboot your system and go see something simple and good.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yea.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
And if you still can't enjoy that, we should talk.
But that for now that works. You have a conversation
as well, Yeah, figure it out. But yeah, that it's
so good for the soul.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, it was just so like it. It really was
a reset. It felt very like sweet and tender and yeah,
it was nice to you because we were celebrating something
that we can't talk about right now on air. But
it like very much felt like the kind of show
that I want to see on a night that I'm
like celebrating something. Yeah, where it just felt very like like,

(16:07):
I don't know, very up, even though there were such
sad moments and I cried more than I ever had in.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
A sad but of flifting is a is a very
specific Yes, it.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Felt honestly like going back to animation. It felt like
the way I felt in up, not the way I
felt in like, oh, that's crazy. I know, that's wild.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
I haven't seen a lot of like the big Pixar
animated movies.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Really yeah, have you seen Inside Out?

Speaker 3 (16:28):
I saw the first one.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Okay, you haven't seen the second one? That's fine. Have
you seen Cars? No?

Speaker 3 (16:33):
But I reference it all the time.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well wait, that's not allowed. Yeah, no, you can't do that. Wait.
Have you seen Toy Story?

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, I've seen the first one, maybe the second or third?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Wait you've You've never seen cars, but you reference it? Yeah?
You like.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
I have a lot of Life as a Highway bits.
I have this bit that I like to do with
certain casts. If casts are down for it, they you know,
you gotta go. You gotta vibe a really sad play.
I'm in like a really messed up each play, I
will do a bit where when we go out for
a curtain call, we sing Life as a Highway, like

(17:10):
before we go on or under our breath to kind
of like d roll.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Like, I I didn't know what I was doing until
I wrote about it my thesis, but I like, I
think I did reference in my thesis, like you have
to kind of like get out of something really bad.
But the funniest way to do that sometimes is to like,
you know, have your character dive violently on stage, get
dragged off by other actors, go out for bows, and
be thinking like that works.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Wait have you seen Okay, I'm gonna go through them,
okay because I want to kind of call you out. Okay,
because that's insane. I feel like everyone's seen every Pictar movie.
You've seen the Incredibles? Yes, good? Okay, I wait my
favorite PickStar movie? Have you seen Ranatuti? Yes? Okay?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Those are like those are when I was younger.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
No, I know, ye yeah yeah, but still like they
still are very good movies.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
There was like the movies that were targeted towards me
when I was younger, and then like my cousins had
children and I'd go to movies with them. Yeah, but
then you know, I wasn't someone who had to go
and see you like it felt.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Easy finding Nemo. Yes, I saw that one, because that's crazy.
You know. See Wally, I think I have seen Wally
say that's like the that and up or that up
and ratitudere like the.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Anytime I kind of like perceive like this is just
a money maker, like we're gonna have eighteen of these,
I just am like a little less interested.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
That's fair. I think that, like.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Like, there's so many cars movies.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Right, there's three, Okay, I guess that's the and the
and one and three are really good. Two isn't great?

Speaker 3 (18:32):
That's that's true for Toy Story two.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
RIGHTST has four and they have light Year five. Yeah,
but light Year is different.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
It's not like, here's the thing you love a franchise.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
I love animation and I love franchises, so Pixar animation
part of my brain.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
But the Pixar animation, I don't think is something that
like speaks to me.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
My sister and I whenever like like we haven't done
it in a minute, I should text ally, but my
sister and I would never a picture my would come.
We would have like a ranking in our notes app
in our phone, and we would like text each other
like where the new where it fit into the ranking? Yeah,
but I should text Alley. But but yeah, there's just
so many good I will say, like it's weirder to

(19:13):
like enjoy Pictsar movies. But then they had stuff like
like Onward came out and it was like kind of
a D and d ask picks our movie and I
was really into it, and everyone hated that.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
It just felt like there were so many Okay, here's
what happened. It's a lot like when like the Marvel
Universe just kind of like started like going into exponential overdrive. Yeah,
and then it felt like kind of too late to
ask and get into it. And then when Lockdown started,
a friend gave me her Disney Plus login.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Oh did you watch them all? Oh? We talked about this.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
My friend CALLI. I have a movie friend named Kelly,
and she was like, I really wish sometimes that you
would watch all of the Spider Man movies so that
we could talk about them. And I was like, you
know what, I can do that now. Now I can
do that.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Now I can And so I asked.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
I was like, do you want me to go like
in order in timeline, in order of release or just
all Spider Man. She's like, first, do all Spider Man,
then go timeline order.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
So she wanted you to walk from twice. No.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
When I went in timeline order, I skipped the ones
I had watched.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
Okay, good, that's good. Okay, have you seen Elemental? It
was one of the newer ones that came out. That
was great. I love that one.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, honestly, Like if you were like, hey, here's like
the three that like you should not miss, I would
listen to you.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Well, I think you watched the one that I would
say that you haven't seen that. You should watch us up,
Like that's.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
It even I am, like I should have seen it.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
You should have seen up as long as you saw Ratitude.
Gratitude is one of my favorite Pixar movies.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Like I saw ratatuy because we like hit some sort
of reading goal in a class.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Oh say they put it on.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Yeah, I think it was in like middle school or
maybe it was like it's going to be the summer,
like screw it. Rat I had that once with Ferris
Bueller's Day Off too.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Ratitude is so good.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Do they still do that? Do kids just like get
a movie day every once in a while.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, Oh for sure.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Like I mean, like I know now days changed because
of distance learning.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Right, Like there's time when Liz was subbing, shout out, Liz,
I didn't turn that thing out of way, oh shout out, yes,
there we go. But there's times when she would go
into sub and like she would have a what's it
called a curriculum or whatever or a day thing, and
I would say, just play this movie like stuff like that.
So yeah, I fully think that that's still absolutely a thing.

(21:13):
I love it, but yeah, I still can't believe you
haven't seen up. But I will say, like Dead as
a Dodo, like the Waka Waka show, those high level
popetry shows do make me think of like a Pixar movie.
That's where it kind of obviously different in terms of.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
That storytelling, like the sweet feelings.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I think that's where it differs from like t Ya Theater,
because like that's the thing is like obviously Pixar is
primarily made for kids, but like there is something about
like watching I'm looking at the mall, like watching Inside
Out as an adult and like and like getting a
lot out of it too, And I think that's kind
of where Dead as a Dodo sits. I think, like,
I think a kid could go to see Dead as
a Dodo and really enjoy it and like really like

(21:52):
enjoy kind of the craziness of it, and and it
would feel very like puppet theater to them. Then they
look to their right and their left and their parents
would be crying.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
I think, Yeah, I think that's the point. I think
the point of these types of media that seem like
they are accessible for children is to a allow children
to be their period. Yeah, because there's a lot of
places that adults go that like kids shouldn't, kids can
there's not media for them. So it is for can
be for kids in certain circumstances. But b yeah, it's
exactly that, so that the kid feels a sense of

(22:19):
childhood wonder and so does the parent, only the parent
also feel sad about it, and the child doesn't like
a child is not picking up on the nuances of
what makes Pixar movies so sad, but like everyone knows
the beginning of up which is the saddest thing ever,
and all the adults for it, right, Yeah, and so yeah,
it's it's that we've got the family in the same room.
They all paid for a ticket. Let's make the right
people laugh, the right people cry, and don't have everyone

(22:41):
age into it. And I also think that like then
you treasure that media for the rest of your life
because the older you get, your relationship relationship to it
can change.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yes, exactly, Yeah, yeah, I think I didn't realize honestly,
I'm trying to think back. The only other puppet theater
I've ever seen was I a couple of my friends
were in like an early iteration of the ram Fish,
like like a production of that, and that was like
relatively cool because there was like adults doing this puppetry.
But it wasn't at all at the level of what
I saw last night. So like this was like very

(23:11):
last night when we saw it, so like truly like
Desert Dodo. It was my first experience kind of seeing
something like that, and it did, like once Grace said,
like felt like a picture movie on stage. I was like, whoa,
it does kind of itch the part of my brain
that like is still in love with animation. Yeah, that
specific style of animation because like you can probably hear

(23:31):
being my roommate most of the time. Again, sorry, but
shout out Liz. I had to list in. The family
got to go to bed, and I had to like
it's a very weird. That's bad, but like.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
It needs a lot of melatonin.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, and family, I need I need Seth MacFarlane yelling
in my ear, and I need four melatonin gummies and
I can sleep for four hours. But but like that's
the thing is that like that's a full different world
in the animation realm. Like I feel like this specific anime.
I can't go to sleep too because it'll make me
feel too much. And like I didn't know that that

(24:06):
exact same part of my brain can be itched and
part of my heart can can feel in a play
like on the stage. I don't think I've ever I've
had other parts of my brain itched, and I've had
so many parts of me like super happy and enjoyed
and like like fulfilled from seeing theater, but I never
had that part itched or felt until I saw this show.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
I think for me, like writing narratives, storytelling in general,
like there's a big hurdle or like writer's block of
like how do I make this work? And puppet Theater says,
just do it. Just say that it is and it is.
Just do that yeah, and so like yeah, it's the
best art form for just I say it, so it
is and everyone goes and so so like and so
like I saw someone use a newborn baby as a

(24:49):
puppet once, like an action baby, yes, and so yeah
and so and here's the thing, it's like it was.
I want to make sure I shut it out correctly.
This is read in Minneapolis. They're dedicated puppet space. They
do these full moon puppet shows and if you are
in near Minneapolis or can be, absolutely go see them
because it's essentially like a variety show for the puppet
tree community. And so you're seeing like a bunch of

(25:11):
like mini sets of things, so a.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Hundred different like puppet theater companies kind of gets to
do a set.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Oh not even companies like individual artists and stuff like that.
Maybe companies, I guess, I'm not familiar. But there was
one and I didn't know what I was walking into.
I'd never seen. It was my first time being at
that space. My friend was stage managing in it, so
I went to another friend. I think it was somebody's birthday.
Amazing vibes. I'm like undressed. Wrong, everyone's too cool for me.
I just moved to town and one of the first

(25:37):
acts was this couple. They're a puppet theater couple. I
don't have the name of information at this one as
many years ago, but they had had a newborn ish baby.
Maybe I don't know about babies, maybe not newborn. The
thing had been out for a while. Like, sorry, that
sounded so bad. That's it's so bad.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
Here's the thing. There's a lot of things that I'll
never say on this podcast, but being Erica's friend hearing
the thing that had been out for a while.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
That sounded that sounded so like a while, you know
what I mean, because I don't know the gener the baby,
I don't know the baby's name. I had been cooked,
it had been delivered, fully baked, And like I say,
that sounded so rude. I say that because like I
wasn't scared the baby's like neck was gonna snap. But
this baby like definitely couldn't see very far in front
of it.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
It's still a baby, no part, Like you'd call that
an infant. You wouldn't call it like a toddler. We're
an infant mode just diaper.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
So at first I don't understand that they're the act
and I'm like, that's so weird. Like these people brought
a baby to a theater, right, that's you know, sometimes
they're performing. Yeah, but then but then they get on tape,
I'm like, oh wait, and so that I'm like, oh,
like I wonder if like this is a setup crew
and like they got to bring their baby because you
just had a baby. And then like, the baby doesn't
leave the stage, and I'm like with my friend, I'm like,

(26:49):
is the is the baby part of the act? And
then they take the baby and they set up like
a fake cardboard mountain range. And then I realized that
this piece is called Adventure Baby. And the point of
the piece is that there's an evil king and he
loves techno music, the evil techno King, and he is
a puppet and he has like a wizard hat. He

(27:09):
kind of looks like the iceman from Adventure Time. Yeah,
and he's an evil techno wizard and he wants everyone
talked only list of techno music. And this baby is
like pro rock and roll and has to fight this
like foe. And so what happened is they would I'm
gonna hold my mic between my legs because you still
have my stance, and I record from my bed, so
they would get this chant going with the audience with claps,

(27:31):
and I don't know if these people will ever hear
about this, but I will happily credit them. But they
get the audience coming and we.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Clap and we go.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Adventure Baby, He's going to save the world. And it
was like this whole thing, And so what would happen
is they would do Adventure Baby and the baby would
get kind of toaddled and the baby's like, uh, you know, okay,
and then they would quick sub about the baby. They'd
put the real baby behind the mountains and they had
a stunt baby puppet that would beat the shit out
of the technois and then you know, you'd keep the

(27:59):
clap going and they just like kept facing off and
like things kept happening. But then they'd bring the normal
waybe back out to do like interactions and stuff, just
like light jostling. It was so funny. It was the
coolest thing I'd ever seen. It's it spoke to me
as a woman, you know, someone who's like, oh, like,
how do you do childbirth? How do you do motherhood? Yeah,
at her child Current Theater, it was so amazing, And

(28:20):
like my friends still reference Adventure Baby all the time.
And that was like one out of like ten things
I saw that night and yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
It's so good, that's so funny. Oh my god, it
was amazing.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
And then that night also this is like so specific
to the Minneapolis puppet scene, they did a roast of
themselves of each other of the puppet community.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
And.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
So like the thing is is like if you're not
part of the community, you don't know who they're really
roasting or why. But like it was so juicy, like
people would in puppets, like with puppets, like act out
other real people that they know who are like probably
in the house. This is a small house, and like
room would laugh because like they all get the inside
jokes and like they had a kid deliver the lines
and be like like a few to this guy. Like

(29:07):
it was so amazing, that's so good. So yeah, yeah,
I just honestly, I wonder if this is my pipeline
if I'm like, oh, this thing is so helpful to me.
I love it. Like I wonder if ten years from
now it's like the puppeteer. Yeah, because I and we
had you know, puppetry program at WU. That was amazing.
That honestly, like I should have hung out with more.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
But yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah, all this long, long banter to say, puppet theater
is amazing. See if it's near you.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
This episode ends when Erica Kun exclusively refers to herself
as a puppeteer.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Yeah, yeah, I do puppet stuff.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Now, I do puppet stuff now and I'm a puppet guy.
She's Hawaii.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, tell me about it. Sorry, I got really jacked
about it.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
Oh it's OKAYOD.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
Minneapolis is such a good theater scene. Like I can't
sing it enough. But especially if you're a puppeteer like.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Go, I hope you've sent people there. I hope people
have listened to this because I feel like we've sung
praises of I mean, obviously you sung praises, but I
have two of like Minneapolis. Yeah, from the very very
little bit that I've been there, it's awesome. But I
wonder if, like anyone, it hasn't impacted because so many
of our listeners are like young people in college figuring
out kind of what marketplaces they want to go to.

(30:14):
I just think it'd be interesting if you moved to
Minneapolis because of us. Let us know.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yeah, I should get like a a headhunting.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Hey, yes your rent? Yeah yeah we want Yeah, it's
all about money. Give us a finder's fee.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
So this whole podcast, this whole time, all about money.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
A bit about money, got a bit about money, Give
us a finders fee. Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
If you didn't know Minneapolis existed, send me one thousand dollars.
Also understand that, like, Minnesota is a state we're going
to talk about, and it's going to be my state
that I think about so ext But tell me about Hawaii, because.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Let's talk about freaking Hawaii.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Okay, Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaiian Hawaii. This is gonna be hard.
Hay wajh hay waj. It's an island state of the
United States.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Mind you. That's all i PA breakdowns for Hawaii, right, Yeah,
it is all I p A breakdowns.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Is an island state of the United States and the
Pacific Ocean, about two thousand miles southwest of the US mainland,
one of the two non contiguous US United US States,
alongside Alaska, obviously, is the only state not on the
North American mainland, the only state that are that is
a r pedilego cool. I think that means it's just

(31:34):
like a there's yeah, the only thing in the tropics.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Here's the thing we might both be.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Who knows, ma'am. They speak two different languages. They're both
English and Hawaiian, which is a Polynesian language. There's also
a tertiary language, which is Hawaiian Creole English, which is
also known as uh Pidgin, which is a creole language
that mixes kind of English in Hawaiian, but the Hawaiian

(32:02):
public schools basically like if you go to school in Hawaii,
you're going to learn both Hawaiian and English. Like it's
going to be a set thing, which is cool. I
think there's a huge like Asian community in Hawaii, which
we're going to get to with like all the theaters,
especially like the primary like player it that I'm going
to talk about, but it is like really really interesting

(32:23):
that it is one of the only states in the
in the United States that has a required language that
isn't just English, and the language is centered as like
a Polynesian language, like it is something that has come
from Asia, and like there is so many, so many
people have immigrated from Asia to Hawaii, and like that

(32:46):
community is so strong there that they truly are a
majority of people, and like they have been able to
kind of create a community of art and education and
stuff that like follows what they do, which is I
think really really cool because I can't think of another state.
I guess I didn't do that research, but I can't
think of another state that has a has two primary

(33:08):
languages in the United States, and like, has them taught
in public school? Well?

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah, because they were Yeah, they were colonized so late.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Oh yeah, exactly, yeah yeah, but but yeah, So I'm
going to get into the fun facts that I told
Eric all the answers before. So when I say she
shouldn't good, Yeah, So let's do this. Yeah. The Hawaii
state flower is I'm putting out erica.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
I don't know, like hip biscuits or something like.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
The k all right, the Hawaii state fish is. You
should know this one. It's the reef trigger fish, perfect,
the whole You should know this one. Hawaiian musical instrument
is the Hawaii hand gesture is a wave like hi, no, shaka,

(33:53):
shack a bra, shuck a sign. Okay, yeah, and hang
loose when you take your pink and your thumb and
you shake it. Yeah, there you go. Also fun fact
of today, Hawaii has no billboards. Good. Yeah, because they
don't want to mess up the beauty of the land. Good.
Isn't that sick? Love that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (34:09):
That would have been a great fun fact. But luckily,
can I wait, can I say something?

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (34:13):
I wrote down my tutors in a life for you.
But I prepped this stuff like a long time ago.
I don't remember which one's true or false, so we're
both going to be guessing fact.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
That's huge.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
I know it should be really easy for you to
maybe fail because I won't be able to have.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Any tail, you won't have any idea. No, that's so funny. Okay,
Well let's get into some of the theater here in Hawaii. Yeah,
there's some really really cool stuff going on. First off,
like the primary like college that people that has a
like large theater department is the U is the University
of Hawaii. They have a huge amount of degrees in programs.

(34:49):
They're a full undergraduate program with ba's and BFA's galore,
as well as a master's program. I will say I
wasn't able to find out, and I'm assuming because I
wasn't able to find out, I don't think it is
fully funded. But if I'm wrong, absolutely into this. The
first thing I thought was, Dude, if they're fully funded
on a plane of their player arning program every year,
which I'd love to be in Hawaii for three years,

(35:09):
that seems awesome. My cousin to get tossed around, and
by the way, I want to go to playerting class
and then I want to run outside and get smacked.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Around by ideal way to die is riptide.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, this guy is actively sinking.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
I love it. I s awesome. I have no control.
I don't want any control, by the way, but it's awesome.
But but yeah, so I'm not sure about the fully
fundedness of the program. But I will say they have
a really really cool season this year. They're doing one
of Erican's favorite musicals, one of the only musicals she's
ever been involved in, me Met, They're dot. Yeah, they're

(35:46):
doing Rent. They're doing and it's one of the only musicals.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
There's like three and they're very specific.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, I know. They're doing a new musical, new play
called Poona. They're doing the Surricane play for forty eight
Psychosis or New Metamorphosis. Yeah, they're doing a bunch of
really cool stuff.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
That's a good season.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
They're doing a show called goth Miss, which is like
a goth Christmas show that they did in December.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Ok.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, it's cool. But it seems like there's a lot
of really great opportunity on their main stage. They have
a lot of like student driven like theater as well.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
Didn't we find that? Remember that holiday episode we did
and we're.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Like where all the holiday I know, goths would have
been perfect, I know, I know, but but yeah, it's
like the primary college on the Islands for theater, okay,
and I think it's the only MFA program. So yeah,
like looking at that if you're looking into also like
getting Away if you're not from Hawaii, but obviously if
you're from Hawaiian know University of Hawaii. But uh but yeah, okay,

(36:45):
so let's talk about the theaters. There wasn't a ton,
so I want to like look into It's actually really
interesting because I thought there would be more, and I
could really only find like a very select few, like
there was so like od Way in Hawaii. Is there
like touring company? It all comes out of Honolulu. A
lot of these are in Honolulu, but they're touring like

(37:06):
six and like the Teina Tournay musical in Chicago. I
think they're all like non equity tours because I think
what probably is the case is it's really really hard
to tour a show to Hawaii because there's so many
tours are busting truck. Yeah, so like you'd have to
be able to fly it, right, It's like no, like
you're like swept away the swept Away tour. If it happens,
it's never going to go to Hawaii to get that

(37:27):
boat all the way across the water intended.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
I didn't think about that.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, So, like it's hard to tour shows there. So
like a lot of the shows that they're doing are
like six where like it's primarily a concert show. The
tinaturna musical where's primarily a concert show in Chicago where
it's like flats and it's a little bit more simple. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So it's like it's really really tough to get shows
out there, right, And then I literally found like three

(37:51):
theaters that were doing like interesting stuff and that's not me.
That's not meant to be like other theaters aren't. It
just meant maybe my research is bad. But like there's
one theater called the Hawaii Theater Center that's primarily a
rental space. They do like a lot of really cool stuff.
They do a lot of like comedy. It's very clear
that like it seems really really dope, Like it has

(38:12):
a big, like big sign on the outside. It looks
like a cool like big marquee but it seems very rental,
Like it seems like they like you can It's one
of the only places I found that, like on the
front page of their website you can option to uh
do a marquee message like on the outside, like you
can pay like five hundred bucks and get them to

(38:33):
like put something out there. Well, I thought about when
this episode comes out on Friday. I thought about saying,
listen to play di z is the Why episode for
a day? But I want to put that money a bit.
But yeah, but but yeah, but I thought that it
was It was really interesting. I will say they're doing
one show that made me lose my mind. They're doing Okay,

(38:59):
they're doing a new play. Oh, oh my god. They're
doing a new play called Prescription Colon Murder, the original
Columbia Murder or a Columbo murder mystery. It's starring Pat
say Jack, the guy who hosted Wheel of Fortune for
forty one years, recently retired. He's he's doing He's doing

(39:25):
a random murder mystery.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
That was Bob Barker.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
No, wait, what am I thinking of Bob Barker?

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Thinking of the price is right?

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Price is right? Yeah? Yeah, Pat say Jack, who's like
the famous host of Wheel of Fortune for like forty
one years and recently left and retired. He's doing Prescription
Murder and original play and at the Hawaii Center Looked
booked him blast but but it I I had no
idea where this came from. I was like, I was like, oh,

(39:52):
like it's a lot of like community theaters an maybe yeah,
you retired there probably, I mean, like where else would
you want to retire?

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Here's a thing like that is like definition like kind
of small town, like you would.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Know who you have Like yeah, I also had like
random Pats Jack.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
I feel like, let's put him in the play.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
It's very fun, tell me your favorite. Like, because there
are TV personalities who they're not in character, they're like themselves.
That'd be like if I was like, I want fan
of White to be the mom in august Oh County,
I want her to play that that crazy You know,
who would you pull from TV? Who is themselves?

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Who is themselves? Like uh yeah, Like I'd make my.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
Local Webber weatherman in Iowa and Waterloo. I'd make him
like Willy Lowman or something.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, I would make like Jimmy Fallon, Michael Scott in
the Office musical off Broadway.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, I feel like that would make sense to me. Yeah,
or I would make like I'm trying to think of
like people who are like primarily known as like them. Yeah,
Like I think I immediately think of like stand ups,
like I think of like, uh oh, like Taylor Tomilson
would be really really good in What's a Good like funny?

(41:03):
You could have her be she could be a meteor
shower the Steve Martin play. Oh, it's really really good.
It was on Broadway. Amy Schumer was in it was
in it. It was really really good. Yeah, but but
yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Casher Local TV Personalities Casher Casher Local.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
I was when I was in West Side Story at
the Kodak Theater in New York. We ran for like
two months and we had like a bunch of like
we had I forget what the role was, but there's
a role in the show that like comes in for
a second in the uh, like when they're in the know,

(41:41):
when they're in like the bar scene when the Jets
are with the guy who owns the bar, there's like
someone in the bar drinkings like get out of here,
and they're like, I got out of here because the
Jets like I'm going to walk out. Yeah, that guy
was played by our local weather man, huge, and he
played it for two months. He came in and did
not chose did you.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Stay for bows? Yea, even though he had to be
up that early.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, it was crazy, but he loved it. He had
one line. And here's the thing, people lost their freaking minds.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
That's so funny, Like like.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Well known people came and I was like, how do
you know who this random local weatherman. I didn't think
it'd be that big of a deal. It was a
big deal.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
This is like such a side part. There was weather
weatherman like scandal in my hometown no way. Yeah, because
the overarching like parent company of the local news tried
to like ax all of the local weathermen. They were like,
we're gonna save money, like just go to weather channel.
And everyone in my town is like fiercely protective and
defensive of our weathermen, like we love our local news.
And people were like dunking on them. There's like online

(42:40):
stuff and they they reversed their decision. We get to
keep our weathermen.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
That's insane.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
And because here's the thing, if they laid them off.
I would have had to cast them to play.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Because that was your argument. Yeah, if you lay them off,
I swear to you, I will cast.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
I don't want to start rumors, but maybe I made
the call. Maybe I want them for myself.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
You chose you made that choice.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Evenired that's so funny. Okay, keep going.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Okay, another theater. I'm gonna talk about Diamond Head Theater,
a very cool theater company that does primarily musicals. I'm
currently they're doing Masterclass though by terrece McNally. The end
of their season, they're doing Greece man La Mancha, SpongeBob
the Musical. They did White Christmas for Christons, they did
Honeymoon in Vegas. So they're like a very cool professional
musical theater company in Hawaii based out of I believe

(43:25):
also Honolulu. Yeah, Honolulu, all these around Honolulu. But yeah,
I do think that like there's a kind of like
a lack of like theater within Hawaii, like larger scale
theater like find but I know that there's like smaller
stuff that I'm just like not aware of. But yeah,
because a lot of this is also based on Honolulu,

(43:45):
so it makes me think of like all those other islands,
like what is their theater communities and I wasn't able
to check it down. And then the last one I
am going to talk about is is Mono Valley Theater,
which is they call themselves Anna Lulu's Off Broadway Playhouse,
which you like the theater that I'd be like most
excited about right now. They're doing what the Constitution means

(44:08):
to me, which is awesome. They're doing Parade, which I'm like,
heck yeah. They're doing Kim's Convenience, which is the Netflix
show Kim Convenience, which is about the like Asian American
family who runs a like kind of like a bodega
esque like a convenience store. It was a play first,
which is cool. They're doing side by side by some time,

(44:29):
they're doing uh and then they're doing the Princess in
the Esopeanut. But they did like lend me as soprano.
They did once on this island. They're doing like very
like cool plays and cool musicals and stuff like that,
which makes me very excited. They also where Are You
sh They also have like a get Involved tab where
they have like like open auditions for anyone like that.

(44:52):
They're currently like setting up auditions for Kim's convenience, but
they also have like places where you can submit your
script and stuff like that. And I think what's interesting
is I think Hawaii is so hard to get professionals too,
like to get people from New York too, write, Like
it's so much tougher, I think to fly people in

(45:12):
because it's so much more expensive. Like every single theater
that I've looked at, even theaters that I was like, oh,
this is like clearly an equity professional theater, they all
have open auditions for stuff nice. So there's a lot
of opportunity for people based in Hawaii to perform and
do stuff at these theaters that like I think usually
would not be doing that, which is yeah, which is

(45:35):
which is very exciting and interesting kind of what I'm realizing,
like very early on. But yeah, those are the theaters
that I was able to kind of track down and find.
And then there were a couple of plays that I
was like, oh, these are fun, but also like I
will say, most of these plays are most of these
plays are like about people vacationing to Hawaii, you know

(45:58):
what I mean. Like, like one of the big Hawaii
based plays that people know of is a jonesape Wutin
play called a Hanna Lulu of a Honeymoon, which is
people going to Honolulu for a honeymoon, and it's like
this kind of like big farce or whatever.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
It's very outsiders.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah, it's Jones Tapuin, which is like the three of
them are great and talented and like, I mean they're
all they're dramatist royalty to a hundred percent. Yeah, but
they do write like very like silly farces, which is
super super cool. It just isn't exactly like what I
think is needed. There's like another one that I found
on like like it's hard to find Hawaii based plays.

(46:35):
There's one on New Play Exchange called gen Yeats Her
Hawaiian Shirt into the Ocean, which is very funny and
I think it's great, but it is about someone who
like is on vacation in Hawaii and like they break
up with somebody, so it is still from an outsider perspective.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
One that I was really excited about though, was there's
a play called Flowers of Hawaii by Lee Kataluna. The
play okay, so it's a play scenes about a diverse,
extended Hawaiian family dealing with a host of issues from
infidelity to drug addiction, plus troubles that aren't as common.
Reeling from this hilarious to reeling from the hilarious to
the tragic, these characters find a messy complicated again and

(47:13):
during love for one another, it's like really wonderful. It's
a it's a vignette play that actually looks into a
Hawaiian family. And I think, like reading the first two
plays that I read and then finding this one and
reading it, I was like, oh sweet, I'm just gonna
be a play about a family in Hawaii on vacation.
And it wasn't. It was like an earnest like family,

(47:33):
like Hawaiian family, like dealing with like their issues and
their things. And it's like it's it's very very cool.
It's set up like it's also like kind of in
the background looks at these like stead of these like
vintage dishes in these like with these like famous like
Hawaii pattern I don't know about. It's like the flowers

(47:54):
of Hawaii and like they're constantly used in all these scenes.
It's like this very wonderful like through line. Most of
this like familial tradition, I guess. And it looks kind
of that like like how young people are treated within
this like very traditional place. I think it also kind
of looks into the clearness of like like how late

(48:17):
it was colonized by America. Like there still is this
like Asian tradition within the Hawaiian community, and we're going
to talk a lot about that with this, like player
we're gonna talk about next, but like there is so
much tradition that it is based so long before Hawaii
even baking a US state, that is still within the

(48:39):
like true Hawaiian families. It also like I was, I
was like reading this and it made me think of
the did you ever see the South Park episode where
you always have a South Parker? I know, but there's
there's a sounth like episode. I forget what it's called,
but is like getting really mad. He's like getting like

(49:03):
super angry at school. He's getting in trouble and they
call his parents in and his parents are like, we
know what's going on. He needs to have his ohana
and they were like what and they're like we didn't
want this to come all the way here but where
Hawaiian And they're like what And you find and they're
like we had to send Butters back home to his
to Hawaii to get in touch with his roots. They're like,

(49:24):
what's going on? And they send him to Hawaii with
Kenny because Kenny's like trying to support him. And you
find out that the Stotches just have a timeshare and
they're surrounded by like a bunch of other white people
with time shares. Yeah, and they're all like we're locals.
And it's so funny because they're going through all this
like emotional turmoil of like being Hawaiian, yeah, with the

(49:46):
back landscape of like true Hawaiian people being like yo,
f these people. And it's so funny because like I'm
reading through the theatrical landscape of also like of people
writing about Hawaiian and so many of them are just
not Hawaii, just like writing about like the like oh,
it's like a vacation to Hawaii, like like because that's
what so many people even like me, Like early on

(50:07):
this podcast, I was like I would love to go
give my MFA. There be so fun to be there
for three years, and like in the grand scheme of
things like oh, beautiful beaches, it would be super fun.
It is still a community where people live and there
is tradition, and there's all this kind of background that
people pushed it aside because they've seen a photo on
Google of like the beautiful sands and the beaches. Yeah,

(50:28):
but yeah, a lot of like doing this research did
make me think of that Southwark episode where I was
just like I remember, I mean, like it's his ohana
and it like fully doesn't mean anything, and they just
like send him back and it's just a bunch of
like white people with time shares being like welcome home,
and they're like, I'm here for two my families, Oh
someone's been like my family's been here for thirty years,

(50:51):
two months every thirty years, and they're just like everyone
every year we come here for two months, and it's
just so funny that they like just yeah. But this
last playwright that I wanted to talk about is I
personally think like one of the largest captors of the hull,

(51:11):
like of the like Hawaiian scene of theater. He's recently
passed away, but his name is Edward T. Sakamoto. I'm
gonna be a little bit of his bio. When he
was a he was a teacher at the University of
Hawaii for a long time Edward Sakamoto was born in Hawaii,
graduating from the Alana School, earning his BA in English

(51:33):
from University of Hawaii in nineteen sixty two. He later
moved to la where he worked for for many decades
as a journalist, at the same time becoming a prolific playwright.
Sacomotives plays were frequently produced in Hawaii at the Kuma
Kala Theater at the which is one of the theaters
at University Hawaii, as well as the Kennedy Theater there
where he collaborated with the late director Glenn Cannon. Sacama's

(51:55):
plays have also been produced at prestigious regional theaters such
as the East West Players in La, the pan Asian
Repertory Theater in New York, as well as we'll talk
about a second, as was a roundabout featuring him for
like a full month in twenty twenty two. I'll find
that a second. But nineteen ninety seven, Hawaii State Foundation
on Cultured Arts in the Hawaii Legasary Arts Council awarded

(52:17):
Sacomotive the Hawaii Award for Literature, consider the highest award
for a writer in the entire state. And the words
of playwright and journalist Lee Cataluna, who wrote Flowers of
who wrote the player I was just talking about, which
was called Flowers of Hawaii. Who's kind of like the
I don't want to say like the new Edward Sakamoto,
but is like the person who's like now currently like
writing the like Hawaiian tradition in like place for people

(52:43):
from Hawaii. But after this happened, Lee wrote, Sakamoto has
been called Hawaii's most popular, most prolific, most beloved playwright,
but even those super lives don't do justice to his
impact and his skill. Yeah, he's brilliant. He also after
he passed away, the Edward Sakamotive Fund was created to

(53:04):
honor Sacamota. The Edward Sacamoto Fund has been established at
the uh Foundation to provide annual awards to UHM theater
and dance students who have focused on playwriting, and to
support departmental activities related to playwriting and Sakamoto's legacy. So
Edward Sakamoto is like a brilliant author of like Hawaiian theater.

(53:27):
He very much like writes from the perspective of Asian
heritage within Hawaii to and how they kind of like
directly impacted each other. He wrote a He wrote a
thing called the Hawaiian no Oh Trilogy, which is basically

(53:48):
it's it's like three plays centered around two American born
sons of Japanese immigrants that are fighting for themselves, like
through poverty and is basically like trying to figure out
how to survive in Hawaii as these American born sons,
but they are like first generation immigrants of these Japanese parents,
and it directly is kind of looking at the first

(54:10):
one I call The Taste of Kona Coffee, which I
think is really really great. The second one is I
forget what the second one is, but the third one
is The Life of the Land. I've read the first
and the third because they're the easiest ones to find.
But a lot of his stuff isn't published, but you
can find it kind of you look around. There's a
lot of like Hawaiian like a lot of like University
of Hawaii has like some PDF stuff his stuff, which
has been nice. But but it's it's really nice this

(54:34):
story because it follows these I have a feeling it's
I mean, there's nowhere that I found that said is autobiographical,
but I know that he's a Hawaiian born person of
two Japanese immigrants, so I know that he's a first
generation Japanese American man. And that's the story of this
is two brothers that are the same and they're kind

(54:55):
of trying to experience like life and have a find
where they fit in the intersection of culture right from
this place that is heavily colonized, from this place that
is like that was basically taken but still somehow has
the like majority of local people there are from an

(55:17):
Asian community or like from or are immigrants from Asia
in some facet, but then the other like huge portion
of their land is people coming because of a photo
they saw on Google, or like people like you know
what I mean, like people treating them like like they're
at a zoo, like they are like, oh my god,
like you're like real locals, like so are we like
that kind of thing. So it is this like very cool,

(55:38):
wonderful trilogy. I can't recommend the Noka Oh trilogy enough
but by Edward Takomoto, because it is it follows these
like two brothers in I'm trying to think how a
word it correctly, because like in the first play, it's
very much like their family dynamic, and then as it
goes on, you watch their their ship as brothers or

(56:01):
their relationship as brothers I guess fall apart because one
of them connects to it's growing up. So it's like
them as I would kind of recommend it to or
I'd kind of relate it to Neil Simon's Eugene trilogy
because you see them kind of growing up and then
like the final play is them kind of reconciling things
that happened in the second play and in the end

(56:22):
of the first. But you do see like two very
different and also makes me think of like Bad Creole
by Dominique more so that I recently saw see two
people that are given a choice within their culture, and
one chooses to go all in and one chooses to
like they are first generation Japanese American immigrants and like

(56:43):
to not sound crafts, like one of them chooses to
stay in Hawaii and to focus on the Japanese tradition
in their family, and one of them chooses America, and
one of them goes to l A and like really
like leaves that culture and leaves it behind, and you
kind of see them also like later on interact with
the culture of people coming Hawaii for vacation, and it's
like very much you would think it's looking at the

(57:06):
intersection of culture between Japanese and American people, but really
there is this like third kind of line in there
of Hawaiian and what it means to be on this
place that is very much an outcast of America. It
is like put to the side and there's a big,
big border and I mean literally there's two thousand miles

(57:28):
of water. Yeah, so yeah, but I mean, I will
say Edward T. Sakamota, I'm going to put a link
in the description of this podcast. But he's written so
many plays, and so many of them are wonderful, brilliant
plays about Hawaii. He's also written a lot of On
top of writing really brilliant family like dramas that looks

(57:51):
into Hawaiian culture, he's also written very like funny farces
about Hawaiian culture, which it's like weird for me to read,
as like a white dude who literally forty five minutes
ago was like, I'd love to go to Hawaii for
my grad school because beaches are fun. I love getting
smacked around by waves. But like, so it's weird to

(58:13):
read satire about something that I think is satirizing me,
which is like like it's like making me go like, oh,
this is a perspective that maybe I saw that I
need to like look into.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah, I mean I literally went in the recording this
being like I'm a one hundred percent sure I'm going
to bring up like Hawaii so pretty Yeah, and like
that's not the point, Like that's not like what the
whole point of what every talking about a Lee kind
Luna and these people are doing is being like this
is a home for people. And like even like the
people on South Park when they made that like episode,
it's like we're making like they're making fun of the

(58:46):
people that are using Hawaii as a paradise. Yeah, when
like using something as a paradise is awesome because it
is like a a compliment to the land, but using
it to the extent that we use a place like
Hawaii is taking someone's home from them and making it
a tourist trap, making it like a breathing ground for

(59:11):
freaking timeshares and hotels and it's it's taking the it's
not capitalizing. Yeah, they already like we've already called in
we already like taken the land from them, and now
we're taking it again in an even more physical way
because people being priced out of their homes and hotels
are being built on these small islands and resorts and stuff.

(59:33):
So so yeah, I think Edward Takamoto is one of
the one of these very cool It's one of these
very cool things where like I didn't find a ton
on Hawaii, but I did find like Roundabout did something
on him in where was it? I think it was
like right before he passed away, in like twenty fourteen,
but they did something on it where they were trying
to study or they interviewed him in twenty fourteen, and

(59:54):
then in twenty twenty one. Uh, they did something where
every month they tried to study a Roundabout tried to
study a different cultures theater, like like they're like like
a playwright that kind of like defines a certain culture
or a country or anything like that theater. And they
did Hawaii for a month, and they did Edward Sakamoto,
and they did ever like once a week they did

(01:00:14):
readings of his plays and they really looked into like
how this person brought a voice to the Hawaiian people,
like in the theater aspect of things, and and yeah.
They they did readings of the Life of the Land,
the Taste of ConA Coffee, they did Mona Valley, they
did at Las Vegas, which is one of his farces,

(01:00:37):
which was hard to read but also very funny. There's
a I'm gonna like, I think it's fine to say.
There's an interview on YouTube. There's an interview on YouTube
of the La premiere of Aloha Las Vegas and as
this white woman interviewing the like cast and crew whatever,
and it's so clear she doesn't get it. It's so

(01:00:59):
like she's like it's so funny. Oh my god, I
love Hawaii, and all of them are like yeah, like
I don't think you understand what we're doing here, but
like yeah, because I really think it's one of those
shows that you can see on the stage and it
could feel like a farce that's like so silly that like,
but you're not picking up on what's actually happening. Like
I think the first time I read it, I looked

(01:01:20):
at you and I was like, I don't know if
this was like I don't know how to feel about
this play. And then I read it again last night
like quick and kind of like briefed over it, and
I was like, oh, I don't get what's happening with
this play because I'm me, But I understand what ed
we're talking about is doing. I understand why this was created.
I understand why like it like whenever it's produced, it's
like a full Asian team. It's usually now only produced

(01:01:41):
in Hawaii, and it's like done there because it's for them,
it's understood by them, and like if it leaves that community,
it becomes something that I don't think he wanted. I
don't think that he intended for it to be, yeah,
which I think is the point. But but yeah, this
became a long rant about Edward Takamoto, who I think
is a unknown playwright but incredibly known in this one place.

(01:02:06):
Like I think he's like a known playwright, but like
like I mean, it's crazy to see like his stuff
like isn't really published anywhere, like you can. I couldn't
even buy one of his scripts if I wanted to.
I thought about, like I could, I had trouble finding
a script, like we've been We've been sitting on this
research for like a couple of weeks, and I thought
about like going to the dram book Shop and like
buying some of his scripts and I tried and I
couldn't find any. So like, he is this like prolific

(01:02:29):
playwright in Hawaii, but he still doesn't have this like
huge outreach to the mainstream of theater. So yeah, this
is a very long way to say Edward Takamoto is
a very cool person who did something that I don't
think a lot of people I don't think we'll be
able to talk a lot about on this pod this
season of this podcast, being like one of the sole
voices for a state. Yeah. Yeah, and that's and I

(01:02:53):
would say, that's why I would say Edward Takamoto is
Hawaii theater, and that's my research. That's my episode.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
We go, Well, it's not the episode.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
I guess it's not because justin the music. All right,
let's lay one down.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
This is play disease to choose and a lie six
to sand a lie.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
To tell lies about the states you're talking about?

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
This is the one. This is the one that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
It's time for to true sand lie. All right, all right,
this is gonna be really fun because I don't know either,
Do you really not know? No, there's three sentences in
front of me. There three statements, and one of them
is not true, but I don't remember which one because
a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Yeah, all right, ready wait shut oh my god, this
is a late one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
Shut her, hey, better late than ever shut out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Wow, so nice to have exactly all.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
Right, first one, they're all good and short and simple.
I think I think I did really try hard, but
I no longer know. So first one, Bruno Mars was
born there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Okay, that feels.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
True to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
I don't think it's true. I think I would have
seen that. But yeah, I'm going I think that's the lie.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Okay. I here's the thing, Like, I can't even dissuade
you because like it might be so so you don't
like I didn't Mark, I didn't. I put your I
always put your two truths on the line. At the
end of my research. There's no T or F or bold.
There's just three statements.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
I'm not googling it now, but I do want to
find out.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
We'll find out later.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Yeah, but don't go touching. I'm not going to right now,
but I do want to find it out after.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
I'll ask the listeners. Was Bruno Mars born there? Let's
find that out together, all right. Next one, there's no
daylight savings time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
I guess that kind of makes sense. I think they're
in a different They're so far out they might be
in the different time.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
I wrote that there's no daylight saving time, and it
could be true and it could be false.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Cab with you. Fully, I do not understand daylight savory times.
I understand how it works. I don't understand why it
happens for some people and not others, or some countries
and not others. I don't understand why it's a thing
or what it's for, and I don't want to.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
It's confusing to me in that case. Case closed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
There it scares me, though you're ready for the last option.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Yeah, there's no states.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Stone I would have seen this, hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
I know it's like high viscus. This says that there
is no states. This says I say, at one point
I said that there's no states.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Here's the thing I can This is like I'm giving.
I'm all indicate it next time. I'll make it right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
There are three good ones, because I honestly think that
all three could be true. All three.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
Mull it over. I'm gonna put my mic down and
start googling them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Okay, I'm gonna fact check myself. Bruno being born in
Hawaii feels unlikely. It feels like I would have come
across that in my research because he's famous enough, and
like I think at some points I look up like
famous people were on Hawaiian and stuff, and he didn't
come up. I could have been wrong. I could have
not looked that up. But he also has like a

(01:06:10):
Hawaiian vibe, so like I understand like where that came from.
Like he has like an energy tone that would like
totally make sense. I'm trying to think that's crazy. Daily
things like also kind of makes a little bit of sense,
but it could not and that that fully could just
be me. That could just be me not understanding daylight

(01:06:30):
saving time. But it is so far out away from
the US mainland that that could totally be possible. And
then wait, what was the third one?

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
There's no state stone.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Here's the thing I would say that, like, oh yeah,
I would have come across the state stone. I've never
like chose whenever I come across like all the state things,
I don't picked state stone. So I probably just scroll
past it because it seems boring to me. Yeah, so
like there could be a state stone. I know the
answer now you do, well, you know which one is
the lie? Yeah, so there's no states stone. So the
lie would be there is a state stone that feels

(01:07:05):
possible and what's it called feels and the daily same
time things feels possible. I'm gonna say, Bruno Mars wasn't
born in Hawaii.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Your answer is, Bruno Mars was not born in Hawaii.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
That's your answer because because your thing was Brunomars was
born in Hawaii, Right, that's the statement. Yeah, so I'm
gonna say he wasn't. That's why is it a lie?

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
No, that's true. I feel like I would have known
that Mars was born there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Oh yeah. There's an Edward Takamoto play called The Story
of Bruno Mars Retrospective. The musical The Boobscle reacts Day
Yet the Lazy Day in three acts.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Honestly, Mars was born there. There is not daylight savings time,
but there is a state stone. And that state stone
is cool because it's black coral, which is technically the
skeleton of marine animal. Oh, which is like it takes
like black fifty years to exist. Yeah, to their state.
Stone is like kind of it's a fossil.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
Yeah, but yeah Brenamars was born there, suck it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
That's crazy. You got me again, dude, Huge figure outs
to you, brother, Huge.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Here's the thing. I guess the answer is just to
prep this really really early in advance, forget myself, and
then I can't give it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I'm gonna say you could't give it away at all. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
It was really fun because I was like, I don't know,
this kind of seems like something I would do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Yeah, oh man, you got me. Well, guys, thank you
so much for listening to the podcast. To play a Ze,
make sure you subscribe, rate review the show. Follow us
on Instagram at Justin Borrick at actual Erica Koon. We
post about the show all the time. We also post
about like stuff that we're doing, like shows or whatever,
so check that out. We have some cool news of

(01:08:41):
stuff coming up that we can't talk about yet, but
we will be honestly like, this is actually this is
one of the closest were recorded the show to dropping
it because recording this on Monday, we drop it on Friday, literally,
like there might be news coming out very soon, if
not has already come out, that could be very exciting.
What else do we want to plug? Go read our stuff,

(01:09:02):
Go read Kill the Birds on new Plague Change. It's
a really really wonderful, brilliant play. Go read my stuff
over a new play change. Go check out community Garden
and camera chronicles on playscripts And oh, whoa, I just
almost said something I don't want to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, go go.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Read all right, I thought you saw something scary under
my bed.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
And I was like, don't tell me what it is. Oh,
but one thing I can say is I'm doing an
event at the dram Bookshop on February thirteenth. You can
get tickets also, maybe start putting the link for tickets
in the descriptions of the podcast. But you can come
and see it. It's gonna be super super fun. Also
just a fun thing that I didn't know I was

(01:09:43):
gonna get to do for the entire month of February.
There's gonna be a wall in the back of the
dram Bookshop that's curated by me, recommending plays and stuff
the JB Selection. It's gonna be super cool. I'm really
excited about it. I was very surprised that I was happening.
You also see a lot of photos taken by Erica.
I took all this photos, all the photos.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
Unofficial friend photographer exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
But you also, if you read one of the selections,
you might recognize a name in there. But but yeah,
I'm trying to think of anything else. If you're in Hawaii,
go see some very cool stuff there. I mean, I mean,
what the Constitution means to me is a great play.
But everyone, I think my big recommendation is, before you
go see a play, try to track down and read

(01:10:25):
a play by Edward Takamoto, because I don't think i've
ever through all my research, Hawaii had some of the
least amount of stuff going on that I could find,
But they did have a person who really embodies Hawaiian
theater and a new person who's starting to like take
that role. No one feels like handling the baton like

(01:10:46):
every secomod of hand of the Baton to Lee Kataluna. Yeah,
and it's very very cool, So go check out. Lee
Kataluna is on New Play Exchange, and Flowers of Hawaii
is brilliant and it's on there and you should go
read it. But uh, but yeah, go read a leak
cataluna or a a tecomotive, play, go see weird poppet theater,

(01:11:06):
Go yeah, go enjoy smart and said yeah yeah, is
there anything else you want to plug?

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Mm?

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
Not yet, No, next time maybe next time, but all right,
but end this episode of the way every episode by
looking at my friend and her big, big blue eyes
and saying, Eric Cocoon, I love you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
Justin Borack, I love you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Good Bye.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
M m h.

All Episodes

Hawaii - Edward Sakamoto, Lee Catalunha, and Manoa Valley Theatre

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Hawaii - Edward Sakamoto, Lee Catalunha, and Manoa Valley Theatre