MASK ARTS

Mask Arts was founded in the late 1980s by Sonja Kristina iconic vocalist (and then wife of Stuart Copeland of The Police) of the pioneering music group Curved Air. One of the company’s first projects was  to ask Clare Davidson to direct the award-winning London production of ‘Shona’ by Tony Craze. Since then much of the company’s work has been with music projects, but Sonja invited Clare to join them again to direct this production of ‘Miso’ by Susan Sherwin in collaboration with TAG which will first be seen in Hawaii.

INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP FESTIVAL & LUKE DIXON

Luke Dixon has, for 22 years, run the International Workshop Festival has brought to the UK performers and performance makers from around the world to share skills, create work, and share the very best of world theatre and dance. The Hawaiian group The Monkey and the Waterfall were a highlight of a recent festival and the festival has hosted other companies, performance makers and performances from every continent with its annual seasons of work in theatres across London.

CLARE DAVIDSON (director)

Clare trained as an actress and director at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and continued there to receive a certificate in Voice and Speech. She has directed for the last 35 years and her credits include "Miss Julie" and "Little Eyolf" in London's West End, and "Waiting for Godot" and "Candida" Off-Broadway in New York. She directed "A Doll's House" in Holland and "Hedda Gabler" in Norway. For the Jasperian Theatre Company she toured musicals throughout the United Kingdom. She has taught at LAMDA (Head of Voice 1965-72), RADA, NYU and BADA (Dean 1988-89), and for the last 9 years she has been a Professor of Acting and Directing in the College of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has coached actors including Sting, Pierce Brosnan, Dudley Moore, Rachel Hunter, Heather Mills-McCartney, Stephen Rea, Jennifer Beales and Orlando Bloom. She has a long standing relationship with Hawaii, having run Voice Workshops for the University of Hawaii on Kauai, Maui, Oahu, and the Big Island, and also for Kumu Kahua Theatre Company.

SUSAN SHIRWEN (playwright)

Susan is a playwright, novelist and painter. She has studied Japanese culture and lived in Japan for some years. Previously, in the USA, she has worked with members of New Dramatists in New York and had a play ‘Zenobia’ produced in New Orleans.  She wrote the Libretto for Stewart Copeland’s acclaimed opera ‘Holy Blood and Crescent Moon’ which had two separate productions, one in Cleveland, Ohio the other in Fort Worth, Texas. Her first play, Crumbs, a black comedy for seven women, was produced by the prestigious King’s Head Theatre in London.  Her subsequent play ‘Knitting a Chicken’ was chosen by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain for production at the Latchmere Theatre, also in London. She has had plays chosen for various playwriting Festivals, notably at the Orange Tree Theatre. For seven years she ran a (New Writing) Writers and Equity members Actors group in West London. Here she was responsible for choosing the new plays, the directors and the casting. At 16 she was one of the youngest ever pupils of UCL, Slade School of Fine Art, since then her work has been shown in a variety of London Galleries. She also has five published novels. 

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"In Honolulu's theatre community, TAG is known as the go-to place for a good straight play, the kind in which dialogue isn't the white bread that surrounds juicy song-and-dance numbers."

Honolulu Magazine

February 2009

Performance times: 

Thu - Sat at 7:30pm

Sunday at 2:00pm

Ticket Prices:

General Admission

$20

Seniors

$15

Students

& Military

$12

  

Thursdays

All seats $10

Groups of 10 or more $12 per person

Opening July 24th & running through Aug 16th!

WORLD PREMIERE!

Miso

a drama by Susan Shirwen

directed by Clare Davidson

July 24 - August 16, 2009

Don't miss the first show of our

2009 - 2010 Season!

A joint project with MASK ARTS & INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

in London, England.

The play is about a farming family in 1930's Japan  when the country was going into an illegal war with China and wielding it's new-felt power.

The Nagao family is struggling to make ends meet with the government taking control over rice prices. The rich are getting rich in the city but in the rural areas of Japan families are starving, surviving on mountain roots and bark. The other families in the village have all started to pack their bags and head to Brazil and America. New dreams and ideas are filling the heart of Fumiko the family's only daughter. The father, Kozo, is a man with stubborn ideals and will not listen to others. He has an undying desire to join the military but cannot due to an accident. So in order to fulfill his desire he uses the bad economy as an excuse and volunteers his son, Shoji, to the military, promising him that it is the best way and that the military would provide for him and the family in an honorable manner. The whole family is outraged with the idea of Shoji’s assignment. The play takes place the night of Shoji's announcement. The Nagao family faces a series of tumbling events that move the family to take a sudden step and make a quick decision.

Click Here for more information about Mask Arts, the International Festival, Clare Davidson and Susan Shirwen.