Plays
About
Lane Nishikawa is a Japanese American actor, filmmaker, playwright and performance artist who was born in Wahiawa, Hawaii and is Sansei (third generation Japanese American).[1] His work often deals with Asian American history and identity issues. He is widely known for a series of one-man shows, including Life in the Fast Lane, I’m on a Mission From Buddha, Mifune and Me and others. In 2005 he directed the independent feature film, Only the Brave, a fictional account of the rescue of the Lost Battalion by the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated Japanese American fighting unit during World War II. Nishikawa also starred in the lead role. He has written and directed two short films about World War II veterans, Forgotten Valor and When We Were Warriors. Nishikawa has a long history in Asian-American theater, having served as artistic director for the Asian American Theater Company, in San Francisco, California for 10 seasons. He was co-artistic director of the Eureka Theatre and resident director at the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival. Victor (Vee) Talmadge is an accomplished actor, director, and playwright. He received a B.A. from Cornell in 1977 and his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 1980. Throughout his ten years in New York, Mr. Talmadge was involved in numerous activities, besides acting extensively off-Broadway and regionally in established modern and classic pieces, he collaborated on new projects with playwrights Robert Schenken, Jeff Jones, and Shelby Brammer. He co-founded and served as Literary Director for the award-winning New York theater company, Empire Stage Players. It was during this period that Mr. Talmadge’s one-act play, Kiss Goodbye the Howling Beast, was a finalist at the Actors Theatre of Louisville Short Play Competition. Mr. Talmadge taught playwriting for Johns Hopkins University and served as Adjunct Assistant Professor of English for City University of New York. With Bay Area playwright/actor, Lane Nishikawa, he recently completed The Gate of Heaven, a play about a 442nd (Japanese American) soldier who liberates a Jewish prisoner from Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany during World War II. Mr. Talmadge has acted at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre and the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. He has directed at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and has guest starred in a number of television and film projects.