1.31.10 B

A Thousand Cranes opens in 2 days!! Holy cow! My life has just been a whirlwind of rehearsal leading up to this point, and I don't really know what to say/think about it. This first thing to say would probably be that I'm terrified. I don't feel ready, I want another 20 years of rehearsal (ok, maybe not that much, but a week would be nice) I would like my costumes to fit, I would like to not have to wear leggings onstage, I would like to know what the heck we're going to be doing exactly at the workshop, and I would like for the cast to be more solidly memorized. Oi vay.

However.

We do have a really awesome show. If we can pull everything together into a seamless performance for tuesday, whenever I know that like a ton of people are coming to see it, then I would feel much more at ease. But not any less proud. I am bursting with joy at the fact that I'm a part of this fabulous production. I know that the Lord's hand has been involved in making this whole process come together, especially in terms of our partnership with Topaz, and therefore I know that he will be involved in making this production fall together.....tomorrow. I know he can do it. I just don't know if I can. Oi vay.

1.31.10 A

Julien: Tu sais qu'il y avait quelques trucs que tu m'as jamais demandé?

Sophie: Comme?

Julien: Manger des fourmis, insulter des chômeurs...t'aimer comme un fou. 

So, I just finished watching a French film entitled, "Jeu D'enfants" or "Love Me if You Dare" and have mixed emotions on it. However, the more I think about it, the more I'm coming believe that I really liked it. The cinematography is beautiful - the colors were something that I felt really made the film. During their childhood, the colors are bright and the frames are a little fuzzy and 'disillusioned', and as they grow older and older the colors fade and the focus becomes sharper. Yann Samuell (the director) chose to break the film into four segments: "Game," "Set," "Match," and "Dare of Dares," which I loved. I felt like each segment grew progressively darker and, since the viewer is frequently aligned with the 'victim' Sohpie/Julien's surprise becomes your surprise. Also, the story is different and clever and something that I don't think would have done well in America. From the time they're kids, Julien and Sophie engaged in a  battle of one-upmanship: if one of them hands a brightly colored candy tin to the other and makes a dare, the recipient is bound to honor it, not matter what the cost. Ultimately the childhood game becomes a mutual infatuation that binds them for life, and they have to choose between playing the game, or following their hearts. However, I will warn that it's not a happy-go-lucky romantic comedy. It left me surprised, excited, scared, and haunter. Brilliant. 

I guess I don't have mixed feelings. haha.

More News!

Topaz in The Daily Universe!

The dark history behind Utah’s Topaz camp

By Samantha Shirley

 - Mon, 01/25/2010 - 22:34

Two hours south of Provo near the town of Delta is a 42-block plot that once housed as many as 8,130 Japanese internees during World War II.

The 19,800-acre site of the Topaz Internment Camp is now barren, but the cement foundations of many of the buildings can still be seen, along with the occasional tea cup, lipstick tube or pile of nails.

The camp, originally called the Central Utah Relocation Center, was open from 1932-1945. U.S. Citizens of Japanese descent were forced to relocate to the camp, mostly from the San Francisco Bay area.

The Japanese people at the camp were born both in the United States and in Japan, but many had been in the country for generations and two-thirds of the internees were American citizens.

Jane Beckwith, a Delta resident and driving force behind preserving the camp, said many of the people at the camp had lost everything. Their bank accounts were frozen, and many came with almost nothing.

The internment camp is on a huge expanse of flat land that was once the bottom of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. The desert area can get both very cold and very hot, and the wind blows mercilessly. The ground is light clay.

“When it gets wet it’s sticky like crazy,” Beckwith said.

In an effort to make the area more livable, small rocks were hauled in and placed on the ground, making it easier to walk on than the clay. Many used larger rocks to form rock gardens and meticulously-placed walkways.

The internees also created ponds and ornamental gardens in an effort to make the camp their home and try to find joy and peace in a very difficult situation.

Residences in Topaz fit up to 20 people. Thirty-four blocks of the camp were for residences, with 12 barracks each, plus a recreation hall and a laundry building with bathroom, shower and toilet facilities. There was no heat or air conditioning and Beckwith said the residences didn’t get screens on the windows for more than a year.

According to the National Park Service Web site, the internment camp was well guarded, with sentry posts at each entrance, seven watch towers, a fence around the perimeter and a military police compound.

The government spent 43 cents per day on each person in the camp and the food they were served was sub-par. Beckwith said they felt as if they were being fed liver and tripe.

The internees cared for vegetable gardens as well, but climate and soil conditions made it difficult for plants to grow. The government had hoped to make the camp self-sufficient through the use of gardens, but it never happened.

“The gardens, they’re not great … but people were trying to find some sort of beauty in a harsh environment,” Beckwith said.

 Topaz has not always been well-known, but it became a National Historic landmark in 2007 with a lot of help and a grant from the National Park Service, Beckwith said.

Even though Japanese Americans were targeted during World War II, many still continued with a strong love for the United States. Many young Japanese men fought for America in the war, and a picture of a plaque at the Topaz site shows mothers with their sons:

“Gold star mothers, incarcerated behind barbed wire, welcome home their U.S. veteran sons – while at the same time, mourn for sons lost, fighting for America.”

The cause for the internment camps across America is not simple. Beckwith said Japanese people weren’t brought to internment camps just because of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

“The U.S. had been actively and covertly fostering a type of racism against the Japanese,” Beckwith said. “I don’t think America can ever afford to do that again.”

A Thousand Cranes!!

We're in The Daily Universe!

Young Company's "A Thousand Cranes" Feb. 2-13 celebrates peace

Brigham Young University’s Young Company will present a theatre for young audiences production of “A Thousand Cranes,” an award-winning true story of hope and love by Kathryn Shultz Miller, Feb. 2-13, at 7 p.m. in the Nelke Theatre, Harris Fine Arts Center.

Two Saturday matinees are planned for Feb. 6 and 13 at 2 and 4 p.m. There will be no performances Sunday or Monday. Ticket prices range from $6 to $11 and can be purchased online at byuarts.com, by phone at (801) 422-4322 or in person at the Harris Fine Arts Center Ticket Office.

“A Thousand Cranes” tells the story of Sadako, a 12-year-old Japanese girl who, 10 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII, discovers that she has radiation sickness. While in the hospital she learns of a legend of 1,000 paper cranes and begins folding. She hopes that in completing 1,000 cranes, the gods will grant her one wish: “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world.”

The production was also inspired by artist Miné Okubo’s belief that “time mellows the harsh and the grim, but it does not erase it.” Okubo was a former detainee in TOPAZ, a Japanese American WWII internment camp in Utah. Okubo’s idea embodies the connection between the WWII victims in the Utah desert and those in the play’s story, according to director Julia Ashworth.

“As Okubo suggests, time brings the encouraging possibility of moving forward and finding hope, but it also allows the discouraging possibility of forgetting,” Ashworth said. “Our production honors this idea as we embrace our own responsibility as citizens to remember such events, and our responsibility as artists to help others to remember, or discover, too.”

Along with the production, BYU’s Department of Visual Arts will host an exhibition featuring 123,000 origami cranes, which represent all those who were in detained in the U.S. internment camps. It will also include artwork by Chiura Obata and other artists who lived in Utah’s TOPAZ Camp. The exhibition will run through Feb. 15 in the Harris Fine Arts Center’s B. F. Larsen Gallery.

There will be a pre-performance reception Thursday, Feb. 4, at 5:30 p.m. featuring special guests, speakers and musicians, including BYU political science professor Byron Daynes, who teaches a course on the TOPAZ Internment Camp; Jane Beckwith, board member of the TOPAZ Museum in Delta; Michelle Reed, co-pilot of the 123,000 crane project; Ty Imamura, a descendent of Sadako’s family, who also had an uncle in the TOPAZ Internment Camp; and musicians Hatsumi Bryant and Kimiko Osterloh, who will play the Koto, a traditional Japanese instrument. The public is welcome to attend.

The Young Company consists of faculty and students who combine their talents to bring theatre art to elementary school students. Cast members include Shannon Hensley as Sadako, as well as Cameron Asay, Caitlin Cotton, Richie Uminski, Darla Jones, Anna Hargadon, Jon Low and Jes Griffin.

The theater production team includes stage manager Amy Cloud and cultural consultant Ai Yasufuku.

The production is sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Media Arts. For more information, contact Julia Ashworth at (801) 422-4539 or at julia_ashworth@byu.edu.

A New Semester

Well, here I am, back in Utah where it's a chilly 19 degrees and I'm sick as a dog. Like, WICKED sick and it's not faring well for me in my apartment today. Not only am I going to have to go to classes tomorrow (cause it's the first day) but I have to walk up to campus in the freezing cold when I feel like I'm going to die. I mean, in all honesty I can email my professors and tell them that I'm wicked sick and could they email me the syllabus, but that won't fly for my acting class. If I don't show up I loose my spot. And I've worked too hard to loose that class to a stupid sinus infection/cold. Ewww I haven't been able to sleep and I just feel like a semi-living blob. I don't do well on my own when I'm sick. I really am a big baby and don't like being away from mom when I'm in need. I already miss her more than a little. More than a lot, actually. And I'm not going to be able to see her until the semester is over, cause she won't be a able to come up and see me in 1000 cranes. Which also breaks my heart more than I care to admit to even myself. Speaking of 1000 cranes - I don't think that I've talked about that on here at all. Shame on me. WELL

First of all, you can visit our website! www.athousandcranes.net and basically it will tell you more about the production with pictures from what we've done so far and news about upcoming events.

Alright. Now I'll do a little Q&A to help you get the picture :)

Q: What is this show?

A: A Thousand Cranes tells the true story of Sadako Sasaki [me!], a 12 year old girl who was diagnosed with 'radiation sickness' [leukemia] 10 years after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. This play is an adaptation of the children's novel Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes that is required reading for many 4th-5th grade classes all over Utah.

Q: Is this a BYU production?

A: Indeed it is! It's also my first mainstage production here at BYU and I'm basically excited out of my brain to be involved in it. BYU does two "Young Company" shows every year, and this is one of them.

Q: What exactly is a "Young Company" production?

A: Well, like I mentioned above, two of the nine theater productions this year are Young Company shows. These productions are short children's plays (usually 40-45 minutes) written for a family-oriented audience that runs for two weeks on BYU campus and then tours to various elementary school througout the state to perform and teach workshops.

Q: Workshops? What exactly does that entail?

Well, members of the company for this show are what we like to call "teaching artists" and what that means is not only are we performers and actors, but we're also teachers. This is the first year that the actors and the teaching artists have been the same people. What we're going to do is after the performance, we'll split into pairs and then teach the 4th grade classes about the themes and messages of the production, as well as having them share what they've learned with us.

Q: When and where can I see it?

A. A Thousand Cranes will play at BYU Nelke Experimental Theater from February 2-13 at 7PM with 2PM and 4PM matinees on the 6th and 13th. There will also be performances at the Covey Center located on Center Street in Provo on March 2nd & 3rd, a performance at the Orem Library on March 29th, and a performance at the Provo library on April 12th. The elementary tour dates go throughout the entire semester, so ask me in person if you've got questions bout that.

Q: Didn't you say you went to Topaz for this? And met with Chieko Okazaki? What's this all about?

A: We have a partnership with the Topaz museum. Topaz is one of the many interment camps that Japanese-American were sent to during WWII. The Topaz museum was in possession of 123,000 paper cranes (no- that's not a typo) to represent each Japanese-American sent to an internment camp. They have loaned them to us to use part of a lobby display/art display on the main floor of the HFAC. Sister Okazaki came to learn about our production and also to help us string some of the cranes for the art display. Many students have volunteered to help us string them. We did also get to visit the actual site of Topaz, located west of Delta, Utah.

Q: Where/how do I get tickets?

A: Right here! Just click on "Buy Tickets Now!" and you're set :)

And there ya go. That's it for now. Thanks to my fellow cast-mate Jon Low for also having a Q&A on his blog which inspired mine :)

Oh - and before I go here's a little bit of interesting trivia for ya - Did you know that Ricky Martin sings the Spanish version of "I Can Go the Distance" from Disney's Hercules? Yeah. Neither did I. But the music video is on the DVD. And it's fabulous. Because Ricky Martin is fabulous.