Milestones in Asian American Theatre

Josephine Lee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032066660
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000636376
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Asian History

This introduction to Asian American theatre charts ten of the most pivotal moments in the history of the Asian diaspora in the USA and how those moments have been reflected in theatre.

Designed for weekly use on Asian American theatre courses, ten chosen milestones move chronologically from the earliest contact between Japan and the West through the impact of the Vietnam War and the resurgent "yellow peril" hysteria of COVID-19. Each chapter emphasizes common questions of how racial identities and relationships are understood in everyday life as well as represented on the theatrical stage and in popular culture.

Milestones are a range of accessible textbooks, breaking down the need-to-know moments in the social, cultural, political, and artistic development of foundational subject areas.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction: The Historical Milestones of Asian American Theatre
• 1 Staging Minor Feelings and Rehearsing Reparation
• 2 Staging Exclusion: Immigration and Exploitation in Asian American Theatre
• 3 Theater of the American Tropics
• 4 Dusty Barracks and Empty Stages: Revisiting the Mass Exclusion and Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II
• 5 From “Orientals” to Asian Americans
• 6 Instruction Pieces: The Emergence of Asian American Performance Art
• 7 Southeast Asian American Theatre: Refugee Memories and Enacting Home
• 8 Yellowface and Asian American Actors
• 9 Grief and Terror in Post-9/11 Plays by South Asian and Arab American Playwrights
• 10 Staging Asian America in a History of Present Illness
• Conclusion: Beyond These Milestones
• Timeline
• Glossary
• Further Viewing and Reading
• Contributors
• Index