Celebrating Our 40th Anniversary Season With Five New Plays by five of our most popular playwrights!
Plays about life in Hawai`i
Plays by Hawaii’s playwrights
Plays for Hawaii’s people
Five great plays – another great season.
This season Kumu Kahua presents five world premieres, including three plays commissioned especially for our 40th anniversary, by five of our best-known playwrights: Dennis Carroll, Lee Cataluna, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Edward Sakamoto and Lee A. Tonouchi. With this outstanding season, our commitment to producing plays for and about Hawai‘i continues.
Still the best entertainment value in town.
Part of our mission is to keep ticket prices affordable for young and old. If you purchase season tickets, you get an even better deal. First-time season subscribers now save 25% over single-ticket prices and renewing season subscribers save 40%!
Intimate theatre. Talented artists.
Kumu Kahua’s 100-seat playhouse puts you at the heart of the action. And with more than 165 plays to our credit, our artistic and technical experience attracts some of Hawai‘i’s most talented actors, directors, playwrights, designers and other theatre artists.
Season subscribers get special benefits.
As a season subscriber, you’re guaranteed seats at each production. You’ll get a subscription to our e-newsletter. And best of all, you’ll be helping to support Kumu Kahua.
Kumu Kahua's 40th Season of Plays For and About Hawai`i 2010-2011
By Dennis Carroll; based on a story by Dennis Carroll and Bob Okazako
Chinatown, 1900: In a seedy brothel, men from all walks of life gather to enjoy opium, drinks and the company of women. Outside, the bubonic plague has begun to spread, and the government will do anything to stop it. Dennis Carroll, a founding member of Kumu Kahua and the author of Way of a God and Age Sex Location, unleashes a brutal and sensual new play that brings to life a dark chapter in Hawai‘i’s history. This play contains adult language and content.
Sundays 2pm: August 29; September 5, 12, 19, *26, 2010
American Sign Language Interpretation performance available upon request
The Great Kaua‘i Train Robbery
A Kumu Kahua commission by Lee Cataluna
Kaua‘i, 1920: At a time when plantations used railways to transport workers’ pay, the stage was set for one of Hawai‘i’s most unusual robberies. This is the story of Hali, a man who will do anything to protect his beloved family—even if it means becoming a suspect in the crime. From the author of the smash hits Folks You Meet in Longs and Da Mayah comes this tender and moving drama, inspired by a true story, about how far we go for the people we love.
Sundays 2pm: October 31; November 7, 14, 21, *28, 2010
(No Show Thursday, November 25th, because of Thanksgiving).
American Sign Language Interpretation performance available upon request
Da Kine Space
A Kumu Kahua commission by Lee A. Tonouchi
Gen X and Gen Y collide, local style! Meet Ry, a failed artist frustrated by his life and relationships, and Cader, a wannabe filmmaker with some odd ideas about art. As Ry and Cader confront the creative process, pop culture, the generation gap and more, the theatre transforms into a living art gallery. Lee A. Tonouchi, the author of Living Pidgin and Gone Feeshing, brings his sharply-honed pidgin and offbeat sense of humor to this wry study of art and life in contemporary Hawai‘i. This play contains adult language and content.
Sundays 2pm: January 16, 23, 30; February *13, 2011
(No Show February 6th, because of the Suberbowl).
American Sign Language Interpretation performance available upon request
The Holiday of Rain
A Kumu Kahua commission by Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl
At the Sadie Thompson Inn in Samoa, guests can take part in an unusual experience: a reenactment of W. Somerset Maugham’s 1921 short story “Rain.” But thanks to a magician’s time warp, the real Maugham finds himself on the guest list. Swirling together fantasy, history, humor and drama, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, winner of the Hawai‘i Award for Literature and the author of The Conversion of Ka‘ahumanu and Ola N? Iwi, deconstructs one of the world’s most popular writers.
American Sign Language Interpretation performance available upon request
It’s All Relative
By Edward Sakamoto
The Miyamotos look like a happy family, but in Edward Sakamoto’s dark comedy, nothing is what it seems. Beneath the surface you’ll find a collapsing marriage, resentment, regret, midlife crises, and three daughters who’ll do anything for their parents’ attention. One of our most popular playwrights and the author of Aloha Las Vegas and Stew Rice unveils a fresh, funny and challenging portrait of a local family adrift in the modern world.
Kumu Kahua productions are made possible with support from the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, celebrating more than thirty years of culture and the arts in Hawai‘I, and the National Endowment for the Arts; The Annenberg Foundation; Paid for in part by the taxpayers of the City & County of Honolulu; the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts, Mufi Hannemann, Mayor; and Foundations, Businesses and Patrons
Kumu Kahua's 100-seat playhouse puts you at the heart of the drama. And
with well over 100 plays to our credit, our reputation attracts some of
Hawaii's most talented actors, directors, playwrights, designers and other
theater artists and technicians.
Ghosts in the Plague Year
The Great Kaua‘i Train Robbery
Da Kine Space
The Holiday of Rain
It’s All Relative