Membership Spotlight – March 2024

Composing music and writing lyrics for SUPER AUNTY by Lee Cataluna at Honolulu Theatre for Youth.

Katerina Teaiwa’s Project Banaba.

Getting my play, BERETANIA SNAPSHOTS ready for its world premiere at Kumu Kahua Theatre.

Joy, wonder, horror, rage, sorrow, contentment, and every possible emotion you can conceive are felt on a deep level by keiki every day, whether they have the language to express it or not. TYA is an opportunity for youth to experience art that allows an exploration into their emotions, an expansion of their capacity to walk thru hard feelings, and a broadening of compassion for their friends and family. The creative play-work of TYA creators, like educators, has a vital role in building up the next generation’s self-esteem and affording young people dignity, where sometimes they are not treated well nor respected. Some of the most beautiful, challenging, and sublime work I have seen in the theater has been TYA, and I always look forward to seeing what people are creating in the field, no matter where I travel.

Reiko Ho. Most recently, a production of Molly Smith Metzler’s CRY IT OUT, where Reiko was the director and I was the sound designer

Dr. Paul Cravath: my acting teacher, a fabulous director at Leeward Community College, super scholar, and a queer icon.

My website (in dire need of an update) is www.seanjosephchoo.com but it would be easier to get in touch via my Instagram @hai_choo.

As a playwright, I had the huge honor of bringing my show THE GIRL WHO BECAME LEGEND, produced by Zach Scott, to the Kennedy Center. It was amazing to share the production with DC audiences. With my work at HAA, one of the most exciting things is to see our companies on the road. Recently, we went to the Midwest Cultural Trust in Overland Park to see Cahoots NI’s new production THE UNIVERSITY OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION and got to hear so many children cheering in surprise and excitement for illusions in math, science, and art.

I go to the Austin Public Library most weekends with my daughter and bring home so many different books. It’s so freeing to be able to follow one’s curiosity. Libraries really feel like places of abundance to me. I find them deeply inspiring spaces.

I’d love to make a show with my daughter! She’s very interested in unicorns and beluga whales. And I’m excited for our HAA artists to continue to tour across the country especially THE PA’AKAI WE BRING from Honolulu Theater for Youth and POLI POP from BRUSH Theatre of South Korea. Both shows offer such a unique theatrical experience and help connect audiences with places that they may never visit in person.

I love plays that embrace imagination and curiosity. Plays that ask big questions about how the world works. I deeply appreciate plays that are about kindness and connection but that also tackle big human fears. I find TYA work so artistically rich and soul filling.

I work with my dear HAA co-owners and collaborators Spring Karlo & Stacy Meshbane every day. I count on them and am grateful for their leadership & knowledge.

Suzan Zeder taught me so much about writing, especially for young people. Learning from her helps my plays be their playful selves.

You can follow HAA on Facebook and see Spring at TYA USA this year! I’m also on Facebook or happy to hear from folks directly at sarah.saltwick@gmail.com.

I’ve just completed my first full year as Filament Theatre’s producing artistic director, and the first show I worked on was Think Fast, Jordan Chase! by Sonia Goldberg. Think Fast follows three young people navigating bullying and tricky friendships unknowingly influenced by the adults in their lives. The audience is invited to help the protagonist make decisions that lead her to the root of the problem within her friend group and decide how the scenes unfold. It is a WILD play where we travel to 1 of 3 fantastical alternate universes (whichever the audience chooses) to better understand the history of the friendship.

Currently, I am reading A Moment on the Clock of the World and reflecting on how we can collaboratively build a better, kinder world as a community. Specifically, I keep coming back to the idea that “what ‘feels’–and ‘is’–deeply personal is also collective and historical.” All of us are unique, and we’re also interconnected and living a shared experience.

I am also geeked to rewatch the new movie-musical adaptation of The Color Purple.

Coming up, we’re performing Constellation Points’ Cloud Man by Ailie Cohen & Lewis Hetherington. Cloud Man is a delightful one-person story with lots and lots of clouds and puppets, most notably featuring Cloud Man themself. It is a magical story about Cloudia, a cloud expert who has dreamt all her life of seeing a Cloud Man – an extremely rare creature who lives a quiet life high up in the sky. Through Cloud Man, we’re invited to be curious, observe, and enjoy the wonders of nature without needing to “own” it.

There are no rules in Theatre for Young Audiences, or at least all of the rules are what we create. Youth collaborators and theatergoers are the most inclined group to say YES to an idea that seems entirely impossible, and working for young people & alongside them inspires me to do the same. Theatre for young audiences gives us a glimpse of what a honestly magical,  beautifully complex, and equitable world could look like. Because of TYA, I am reminded to dream big and say yes courageously during times when I might ordinarily say no. This work permits us to see each other in a new light, in ways we never imagined.

Molly Bunder, my artistic counterpart at Filament. We work together all year round, but we work most closely on SPARK, Filament’s new work residency. Molly has this incredible ability to scale any artistic question so that it’s accessible to youth collaborators and adult artists–I often refer to her as the resident young person whisperer. Whenever there is a big artistic question that we’d like to consult Filament’s community of young people on, Molly skillfully translates it to an activity or a game that informs the question.

Julie Ritchey. Julie is Filament’s founding artistic director and the person who showed me that kindness can be a radical act. I met Julie a year or so after completing my BFA and was entirely taken by her collaborative process-driven model of working. Coming out of school I was no stranger to devising, but Julie’s work felt fresh, magical, and, most importantly to me, kind.

reji@filamenttheatre.org.