Auditions Set for Kumu Kahua's ALL BUSS UP Trilogy by Hannah Ii-Epstein

AUDITIONS SET FOR KUMU KAHUA’S PRODUCTION OF

ALL BUSS UP IN A HI STATE: A TRILOGY OF HAWAI‘I PLAYS

WRITTEN BY Hannah Ii-Epstein
Directed by harry wong iii

SUNDAY, September 13 at 6 p.m.
MONDAY, September 14 at 6 p.m.

at Kumu Kahua Theatre 
46 Merchant Street Honolulu, HI 96813 

Performances will be from January 21 to February 21, 2027, Thursdays to Saturdays at 7:00 p.m., Sundays at 2:00 p.m. There is the possibility of added performances.

Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. Sides will be provided. Actors can prepare a monologue from the script if they desire to but it is not required. (Auditioners need only come to one audition. Callbacks as needed.)

Please note any conflicts on audition form.

Script Synopses:

Not One Batu
Meet Honey Girl: a former meth user, now an expert drug dealer. At a Haleʻiwa park bench one morning, Honey Girl meets up with customers and friends, rival dealers and her addict mother, all linked together by the meth they buy or sell, use or reject. Sometimes humorous but ultimately harrowing, Chicago-based playwright Hannah Ii-Epstein witnesses 60 minutes in one woman’s struggle to stay clean in a world turned upside-down by meth.

Pakalōlō Sweet
Junior Boy is a young Hawaiian man who comes from a lineage of marijuana growers on the North Shore of Oʻahu and is now proudly expecting a baby with his girlfriend, Nani. During a night of karaoke, beer, and weed, the medical uses, benefits, and cultural aspects of marijuana in pre-contact Hawaiʻi are explored. What follows is unexpected and heartbreaking as we witness Junior Boy’s struggle to do what he believes is best for his ʻohana. This prequel to Not One Batu follows Papa’s family — and the inevitable hardships arising when indigenous values are systematically marginalized.

Aloha Fry-Day
In many indigenous cultures, hallucinogens are inextricably linked to rituals celebrating liminality; their consciousness-expanding qualities can also induce therapeutic emotional release from trauma. But during a night of jubilant euphoria in the 1990s, Sherrie’s unresolved memories erupt into tragedy. The final act in Ii-Epstein’s North Shore Oʻahu drug trilogy, Aloha Fry-Day follows four friends: Sherrie, Sistah, Lei, and Jason, as they meet in the forest to mourn a friend’s death by spreading his ashes and taking hallucinogens. What they find on their mission is unexpected as they share stories which are haunted by the ghosts of the ʻāina.

 

Director HARRY WONG III IS looking for actors to play the following roles:

Not One Batu

  1. HONEY GIRL: 25 year old female. Local from Hawaii. Can either be part Hawaiian, Filipino, Samoan, Chinese, Japanese, or mixed.A meth dealer. Every time someone smokes meth around her, she smokes a cigarette.

  2. MA: 45 year old female. Honey Girl's mother. She can be Hawaiian, Filipino, Samoan, Chinese, Japanese, or mixed.Ma has a tick such as picking her scabs or something like that. As the play progresses it becomes worse.

  3. SHERRIE: 21 year old female. Local from Hawaii. Grew up Mormon. Can be any Polynesian mixed race. Goes to BYU for psychology.

  4. MAX: Anywhere between 25-30 year old white boy. Semi-local. Surfer boy.

  5. TOULLY: Mid 20's-early 30's. Military white boy from Washington. Has been in Hawaii for a couple of months now.

  6. JASON: 20-25 year old male. Local from Hawaii. A meth dealer. Possibly Hawaiian or Filipino. Short.

  7. 2 MOKES: Both between 20-25 year old males. Samoan. Jason's bodyguards.

  8. UNCLE MAKANA: 40-45 year old male. Local from Hawaii. Hawaiian. Big older guy. A weed dealer.

  9. BRADDAH: 30 year old male. Honey Girl's brother. Can either be part Hawaiian, Filipino, Samoan, Chinese, Japanese, or mixed. They have a different father.

Pakalōlō Sweet

  1. JUNIOR BOY: 22, male. Papa’s grandson. Doesn’t matter if he can sing good.

  2. NANI: 23, female. Junior Boy’s girlfriend. Hāpai with Junior Boy’s sperm. Can sing good.

  3. KAHE: 22, any gender or no gender. Kahe is short for Kahelelani. Junior Boy’s BFF. Doesn’t matter if they can sing good.

  4. PAPA a.k.a .UNCLE MAKANA: 55–70, male. Patriarch of the family. Enters wearing a nice aloha shirt and khaki shorts. Can sing good.

  5. POP a.k.a. SON a.k.a. UNCLE: 40–45, male. Papa’s son. Junior Boy’s dad. Doesn’t sing.

Aloha Fry-Day

  1. SHERRIE: 21 year old female. Local from Hawai'i. Grew up Mormon. Can be any race from Hawai'i. Sherrie takes Angel's Trumpet flower tea.

  2. SISTAH: 22 year old, female. Local from Hawai'i. Can be any race from Hawai'i. She has the ashes. Sistah takes LSD.

  3. LEI: 23-25 years old, female. Local from Hawai'i. Can be any race from Hawai'i. She takes magic mushrooms.

  4. JASON: 20-25 year old male. Local from Hawai'i. A meth dealer. Can be any race from Hawai'i Jason takes peyote.

 

Other Characters from Not One Batu and Pakalōlō Sweet:

  • HONEY GIRL

  • MA

  • BRADDAH

  • MAX

  • UNCLE MAKANA

  • JUNIOR BOY

  • KAHE

  • NANI

  • POPS

Call the Kumu Kahua Theatre office at 808-536-4222 or email officemanager@kumukahua.org if you need more information or to read the script.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR


Harry Wong III has directed over 100 plays in his career, 52 of those at KKT as Artistic Director. Harry was the co-founder of HSF and a founding Board Member of the Lizard Loft. Awards he has received include the 2015 Ho‘okele Award recipient; second recipient to sustain quality service in the non-profit art industry sector. 2010 recipient Outstanding Alumni of HCC, 1999 recipient of the SFCA Individual Artist Fellowship Grant for Theatre Directing; first non-playwright to be honored, 1996 Princess Grace Award for Theatre Directing Recipient; 1996 Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab participant; result of a national search of young directors, 1995-1996 Allan Lee Hughes Fellow at Arena Stage Washington DC; result of a national search of postgraduate people of color entering the regional theatre scene and the 1991 & 1993 Masako Sakamoto Scholarship for Acting; given to Hawai‘I High School graduates studying acting or playwriting.

 

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Hannah Ii-Epstein (she/her) is a Native Hawaiian creative writer and award-winning dramatist from the North Shore of Oʻahu. Her work centers Native Hawaiian identity and LGBTQIA+ experiences, blending cultural tradition with contemporary storytelling across theatre and film. She earned her MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from Northwestern University and is the Artistic Director of Nothing Without a Company, a Chicago-based theatre and film company dedicated to site-specific new work. Hannah is a founding member of BearCat Productions, a 50th season writer at Kumu Kahua Theatre, a member of Tree Moss Hawaiʻi, and a writer at Moʻolelo Modern. She was also part of the inaugural Native Hawaiian Storytelling Writers Immersive Program and is one important kine person at the Pīpī Holo Kaʻao: Kanaka Writers Conference this November 2026.

 

Kumu Kahua productions are supported in part by The Kim Coco Fund for Justice of the Iwamoto Family Foundation, Timothy and Eddie, the NME Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, the Island Insurance Foundation, The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawaiʻi, The AAPI Community Fund, The Richard Aadland Fund, The Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The John R. Halligan Charitable Fund, Spectrum/Charter Communications, ABC Stores, the Gloria Kosasa Gainsley Fund, Hawaiʻi Public Radio, H. Hawaii Media, Simply Storage, HUB Coworking, Vacations Hawaiʻi, Zippy’s Restaurants, Highway Inn, Generations Magazine, CVS/Longs Drugs, HMSA, Hawaiian Electric, MonkeyPod, and other foundations, businesses, and loyal patrons.

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