Supposed Home
Shiyo left the Japanese American Concentration Camps a long time ago…or so she thought. Past and present become one landscape for this anime adventure as enemies are revealed, companions are found, trauma is unpacked, and what was only thought becomes (un)spoken word.
Playwright
Sam Hamashima
Sam Hamashima (them+) is an artist based in unceded Lenape Land known as New York City. Hamashima also holds space for the Tuscarora whose Lands, including North Carolina, nurtured them and their artistic voice. Hamashima’s work ranges from script to visual poetry with an emphasis on empowerment, change, and healing. Their works include American Spies and Other Homegrown Fables (The Hub Theatre, Winner of the 2018 Kennedy Center Undergraduate Playwrights’ Award, University of Michigan Hopwood Award in Drama) and Supposed Home (Seattle Public Theater, Finalist – Seven Devils Playwrights Conference). They are the second recipient of Seattle Public Theatre’s Emerald Prize and are currently under commission from Lexington Children’s Theatre. BFA in Musical Theatre, University of Michigan. @samhamashima, samhamashima.com
Director
May Liang
May Liang (she/her) is the Artistic Director of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company, the Asian and Asian American theater in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also a freelance theater director/artist of color and has worked with American Conservatory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor Lab, California Shakespeare Theater, and Crowded Fire Theater (Resident Artist). May was a member of the 2017 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York City, a member of the 2019 Directors Lab Chicago and was nominated for Outstanding Direction of a Play at the 2018 Theater Bay Area Awards for Inside Out and Back Again at Bay Area Children’s Theatre. May graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and in another life, was a campaign organizer/activist for immigrant rights with ASPIRE—the first Pan-Asian undocumented immigrant youth organization housed under Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.
Dramaturg
Miranda Cornell
Miranda Cornell (she/her) is a mixed-race, Japanese American theater director, generative artist, and educator. Select directing credits include the North American premiere of It’s True, It’s True, It’s True, The Potluck Plays (Asian American Arts Alliance, also co-writer), Head and Heart (NYMF), and more with The 24 Hour Plays, Primetime Theater Festival, Playdate Theatre, Underscore Theatre Company, Fordham University, FringeNYC, and Semicolon Theatre Company, where she served as Founding Artistic Director from 2013-2018. As an assistant director: Park Avenue Armory, The Public Theater, McCarter Theatre Center, New York Stage and Film, and The TEAM. She has developed work with NAATCO, NAMT, and the Shakespeare Academy @ Stratford. She was the 2020 Van Lier Fellow in Theater at A4 and is a proud member of the Roundabout Directors Group (Cohort 2). She holds a BA in Drama and Education from Vassar College.