TeAda Productions
Currently, we are gearing up to host TeAda workshops, and community events alongside the development of our newest touring play, Nothing Micro about Micronesia - set to premiere in Spring 2024 at Honolulu Theater for Youth. Many of the ensemble members performing in our touring productions begin as participants in our TeAda workshops which start and end with conscious listening, community building, personal storytelling and cultivating creative courage. Nothing Micro About Micronesia will be inspired by real stories that address over-policing, climate migration, cultural assimilation, erasure and reclamation of traditional cultural practices, and the challenges that come with perpetuated false characterizations of Micronesians throughout Hawai’i, Guam, and the U.S continent. Through the stories of Micronesian peoples, this ensemble performance will connect personal lived experiences with local to global issues. The play came about as a result of Masters of The Currents’ successful international tours and community engagement activities. The core of the ensemble will be made up primarily of Micronesian, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian actors.
TeAda’s community engagement workshops, residencies, and intentional community building events convene our target audiences through a process that makes them feel seen and heard, while giving members an opportunity to be a part of the continued development of stories uplifted in current and future productions.
Our upcoming events include: our November 4 Friendraiser Party in Los Angeles; Nothing Micro About Micronesia workshops in Hawai’i and locations to be announced on our social media; and the ongoing development of the play. These workshops and community events will lead up to our premiere of Nothing Micro About Micronesia at Honolulu Theater For Youth in March 2024 and the CAATA National Asian American Theater Festival at UH Mānoa Kennedy Theater in May 2024. To get involved and/or to learn more about TeAda workshops, auditions, events, and the latest touring show, please email info@teada.org, visit teada.org/calendar, or subscribe to our mailing list at bit.ly/teadamailing. News can also be found at: linktr.ee/teadaproductions
To support our goals of growing our organization, and our services to the communities that we are fighting for, feel free to donate at teada.org/donate. Mahalo!!!!
ABOUT TEADA PRODUCTIONS + PAST WORKS
TeAda Productions is committed to centering the stories of immigrants, refugees and indigenous peoples who participate in our workshops, while ensuring that the performers we collaborate with on stage come from the community the play is about. This means that extensive, multi-year community residencies, personal storytelling, and TeAda’s devised ensemble process are key to the development of our plays. Over the last few decades, Co-Artistic Directors Leilani Chan & Ova Saopeng have conducted workshops with members of the Micronesian Community throughout Hawai’i, Micronesia, and the U.S. continent. Most recently, we traveled to Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, and Chuuk and had the honor of conducting workshops at schools and community centers. Stories shared during these workshops serve as inspiration for our touring plays.
TeAda Productions’ national touring productions include Refugee Nation, Global Taxi Driver, and Masters of the Currents.
Created in 2005, Refugee Nation was the first nationally touring play about Lao refugees in the U.S. Gathered from Lao-American oral histories, the interdisciplinary theater performance explores the impact of war, migration, global politics, and U.S citizenship. Global Taxi Driver which world premiered in Minneapolis at Intermedia Arts in September 2014 is inspired by real-life experiences of immigrant taxi drivers from L.A. to Minneapolis, from Bangkok to Guadalajara, exploring immigration, mobility, and the effects of technology in a migrant-majority industry in the 21st Century. Our most recently toured play, Masters of the Currents, gives voice to Hawaii’s most recent immigrants from Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania, which is comprised of thousands of small islands in the southern and western Pacific Ocean. Many flee their island nations due to environmental and economic pressures, yet are facing resistance and cultural assimilation in their battle for equality. Since 2015, we have worked to collect stories, write, workshop, co-produce, and collaborate on our Masters of the Currents play, which has now toured Guam, Los Angeles, Utah, Minnesota, San Francisco, and Hawai’i since 2018 to the present. The play has been developed through a New England Foundation for the Arts - National Theater Project award to work with Micronesian community in the aforementioned areas.