Expert answer:Research Paper
Expert answer:Write a 5 page Research Paper in MLA format on Diana Son who is an Asian American playwright, television producer and writer.Instructions: Start the paper off with Diana Son’s biography, then talk about her works and how identity was the main theme in all her plays she has written then end the research paper with an analysis of her play Stop Kiss. Provide a thesis statement in the first paragraph last senfence. the thesis should be about how Identity is a big part of Diana Son’s work. DO NOT FORGET TO CITE ALL SOURCES.I have attached 5 sources that I would like you to use in this Research Paper.http://www.academia.edu/9597597/Research_DIANA_SON…http://www.wgaeast.org/blog/author/diana-son/
diana_son.pdf
stop_kiss_playscript.pdf
Unformatted Attachment Preview
DIANA
SON:
Back in
Orbit
First came
motherhood, then her
new play Satellites
BY TERRY HONG
Vibrant world in broad strokes: Diana Son
60
iana Son’s birth certificate reads Philadelphia, hut otie might
he forgiven for imagining that the playwright drew her very
first hreaths at the Puhlic Theater in New York City. It was
at the Public that Son saw her first professional theatre. She
was nurtured as an emerging artist there and had her breakthrough production there. Now, 23 years after first stepping
into the lofty space on Lower Manhattan’s Lafayette Street,
Son returns home for her latest play, Satellites, which opens
May 30. The production stars longtime Son collahorators
Sandra Oh and Kevin Carroll and is directed by Michael
Greif. It’s fitting that at the core of this new play is the hirth
of a child—and how that event changes the lives of an interracial couple.
featured a woman, Diane Venora, in the title role. “I loved that
production because Hamlet was played by a woman—and that
made the character more accessible to me,” Son says. And she
tucked away that gender-bender notion for future use.
From high school. Son headed to New York University
for a degree in dramatic literature—and her next theatrical
eye-opener, which came at the hands of experimental director
Anne Bogart. “She had staged South Pacific as a production
being performed hy patients in a Vietnam veterans hospital.”
Son recalls. “Action was taking place in four or five different
parts of the playing area at a time. Actors repeated movements
and lines over and over. I didn’t know where to look, who to
listen to, who was who. I was confused. I was enthralled.”
Son first set foot in the Public in 1983, asa Dover. Del.,
high school senior, to see Hamlet. Serendipitously for Son,
this was not a production true to the Bard’s original vision—it
Son eventually studied with Bogart at Playwrights
Horizons, and then spent a lonely part of 1993 at the Iowa
Playwrights Workshop (“My phone bills were never so
AMERICANTHEATRE MAY/JUNE06
Jessica Hecht, left, and Sandra Oh in Son’s Stop Kiss at New York City’s Public Theater.
high”) before returning to New York (and
the Public) as one of six playwrights in the
Asian American Playwrights Lab led by
dramaturg/playwright Chiori Miyagawa. “I
thought then that Diana was a brave and bold
writer who was going to change the expectations placed on Asian-American playwrights
by the mainstream,” says Miyagawa. “She
has not disappointed.” Indeed, Son was the
breakout voice of the lab with her one-act
R.A.W. (‘Cause Vm a Woman)—the letters
stand for Raunchy Asian Woman-—which
probed the angry, questioning voices of
Asian-American women tired of repelling
false stereotypes.
Son’s next hit was her gender-bender
BOY, an unconscious homage to that production of WtfTw/ef. “The first three words lever
read in a Diana Son play are a dead giveaway
of important, exuberant, delicious work,” says
Todd London, the artistic director of New
Dramatists, where Son held a seven-year
residency. “They were the first words of a
cast list: ‘Boy, a girl.’It’s a detail that carries
a worldview.” Born the fourth daughter to A
family praying for a son, Boy is brought up
believing that he is just as his name states,
until he inevitably learns the shocking truth.
BOY opened the 1996 season at La Jolla
Playhouse in California and introduced Son
to director Michael Greif. “I flipped over it,”
recalls Greif. “I loved the tension between the
absurdist cartoony veneer and the truthful,
painful issues that the play had at its center.
I recognized an idiosyncratic and truthful
new voice.”
WHILE BOY MADE THE REGIONAL
MAY/JUNE06 AMERICANTHEATRE
rounds, Son’s next play. Fishes, opened in
1998, first at People’s Light and Theatre
Company outside Philadelphia and then
at New Georges in New York. In Fishes,
Son turns her attention to the depths of a
mother-daughter relationship—through the
use of fantasy. Junebug’s fervent prayers for
her dead mother’s return brings her back as,
well…a fish. “What drew me in,” says Susan
Bernfield, artistic director of New Georges,
“was this very playful theatricality, this
willingness to create vibrant worlds with
broad strokes.”
Then came Stop Kiss, the phenomenally successful play that brought Son
back to the Public, then catapulted her into
national—and international—view. The
play was extended three times and became
one of the longest-running shows during
artistic director George C. Wolfe’s tenure.
The story is deceptively simple: Newcomerto-Ncw-York Sara finds friendship with
seasoned-city-girl Callie. Surprised to find
their relationship developing into something
more, they share a first kiss in a park and are
violently attacked.
Written in concise, nonlinear scenes,
the play brought Son together with Sandra
Oh (Sideways, “Grey’s Anatomy”) for their
first full production. The pair had become
friends during a 1995 workshop oiFishes at
the Mark Taper Eorum, and Oh participated
in staged readings of many of Son’s works,
but Stop Kiss cemented their professional
PEOPLE
alliance. “1 understand the way she writes,”
says Oh. “Knowing her and knowing where
some of the personal places the writing conies
from gives me an insight into the motivations
and depths of her characters.” Greif concurs:
“There’s something very special that Diana
and Sandra have between them that ignites
and explodes during this development process
and that’s fantastic to be around.”
Ironically, some of Stop Kiss’s success—
more tban 100 productions worldwide—
disconcerts Son. “The play’s introduction
specifically says that the cast should reflect
the racial diversity ot New York City,” says
Son, whose original cast featured KoreanCanadian Oh and African-American actors
Kevin Carroll and Saundra McCIain in
supporting roles. “But I was so confused and
upset that many ot the subsequent productions had white casts, even in a city as diverse
as London! I felt so alienated from productions o{ Stop Kiss tbat were all-wbite. That
is not tbe kind of work I want to contribute
to American tbeatre.
“In Satellites, I made tbe conscious decision to write ethnic-specific cbaracters for
the first time,” she goes on. In fact, Son wrote
tbe role of Korean-American Nina specifically for Ob and Nina’s African-American
busband Miles for Carroll.
“We’ve ail heard stories about interracial relationships, so we know wbat tbe
conflicts are. That doesn’t feel fresh to me,”
says Son. “Everything I write is essentially
about identity, hut tbis time I wanted to
create somctbing racially complex. I wanted
the play to be about two cbaracters wbo did
not have a sense of tbeir etbnic identities.
Miles, altbougb be’s African American, was
adopted by a wbite family and raised in a
wbite neighborhood. Nina bad Korean parents, but she never learned the language and
was not exposed to Korean culture.”
While Son insists the play is not autobiographical in its specifics—in fact, sbe
jokingly reports ber busband would like a
disclaimer tbat tbe role of Miles is not based
on bim in any way—Satellites is certainly ber
most personal play yet. “Ever since I had a
baby tive years ago, I’ve been interested in
portraying motberbood in a way that it has
not been seen before,” says Son. “I’ve seen
mothers portrayed as unreasonable and .selfinvolved, but I bavc personally found that
Amy Povitch, kneeling, and Connie Winston
in Son’s Fishes at New Georges in
New York City.
becoming a mother demanded that I he selfless in a way tbat I had never been.”
SON TOOK A BREAK FROM PLAYwriting when ber cbild was born, concentrating instead on writing for television, wbicb
NEW FROM TCG Books
•I The Clean
House
and Other
Plays
by Sarah Ruhl
INTIMATE APPAREL
fABULATION
LYNN NOTTAGE
Intimate
Apparel
and
Fabulation
by Lynn Nottage
The first publication
of Sarah Ruhl, a
playwright “with a
unique comic voice,
perspective and sense
of theater” (Variety).
Includes eurydice; Late.
a cowboy song and
Melancholy Play.
“Exceptionally gifted
playwright.” (New York
Observer) Lynn Nottage
has created companion
pieces that span
100 years in the lives
of African American
women.
S18,95.
ISBNI-55936-Z66-9
S14.95,192pp
IS8N 1-55936-279-0
‘This comedy is romantic, deepiy so, but in the more
arcane sense of the word: visionary, tinged with
fantasy, extravaqant in feeling, maybe a little nuts.”
‘New York Times
The most produced piay in America this past season,
Itytimate Apparel “is a thing of beauty, at times
approaching poetry.”
– LA Times
TCG Books are available at fine bookstores or can be ordered at www.tcg.org.
«z
AMERICANTHEATRE MAY/JUNE06
afforded both a steady income and a grc;it
deal offlexibility.The suecess oiStop Kiss led
her to Hollywood for a year, where she wrott:
for “The West Wing.” Back in New York,
she continued writing for the small screen,
eventtially settling in as producer and writer
for “Law & Order; Criminal Intent.”
A few years into Son’s not-playwriting.
Oh made a hesitant observation. “Sandra told
me she missed my devotion to my work and
my ambitions tor it,” says Son. “It surprised
her how I became single-mindedly focused
on my son. She said, ‘The TV stuff you do for
your family—it’s not really engaging to you.
But playwriting is. You love to be in rehearsals, you care about everyone involved and
you’re concerned about everything they’re
doing. And I think all that feels threatening
to you as a mother.’
“As soon as she said it, I felt it instanth’
tit,” Son recalls. “And that’s what finally
enabled me to write this play.” For the actual
writing, not surprisingly. Son again went
home to the Public. Celise Kaike, the Public’s
literary department director from 2003-05
(now artistic associate/dramaturg at Alliance
Theatre in Atlanta), proved to be the play’s
godmother. “Diana was very clear about her
needs as a writer,” says Kalke, who created
“Diana-space” in the Public’s literary department library, gave her daily page deadlines
and slotted her in for the Public’s fall 2004
New Work Now staged reading festival. “I
set up a situation where she just had to finish
the project.” The play’s test run under Greif’s
direction “was an amazing night,” Kalke
recalls. “Diana and I just looked at each other
and grinned. By early 2005, [Public artistic
director] Oskar Eustis had committed Satellites to being in the 2005-06 season.”
Greif is thrilled to be reunited with
Son, 10 years after BOY. “I sold her my car,
and we’re still friends,” he laughs about their
enduring relationship. “I’m impressed with
her sly and sophisticated observations about
all sorts ot tran.sitions—families in transition,
neighborhoods in transition, individuals
facing moments in their lives in which they
have to redefine themselves.”
For Son, too, the last few years have
been all about transition. Now, come May,
she and her orbiting Satellites can be expected
to make a memorable splash landing—at
home. tR
Terry Hong is the media arts
consultant for the Smithsonian Asian
Pacific American Program.
MAY/JUNE06 AMERICANTHEATRE
‘Ifpiaywriting in America has a center anywhere, il V
. here.
The O ‘NeiU in the last forty years has not Just reflected
the history of American playwriting, it has become it. ”
– Lee Blessing, NPC Playwright, 2005
mnner, 2006 ATCA’Steinberg New Play Award
Puppetn^ Conference
JUNE 2 3 & 2 4
TUESDAYS •
JULY 4 – 2 5
National Playwrights
Conference
WEDNESDAYS – SUNDAYS
JULY 5 – 3 0
‘
National Music Theater
Conference
THURSDAYS – SUNDAYS
I JULY 1 5 – 2 9
Cabaret & Performance
Conference
EVERY NIGHT
AUGUST 3 – 1 1
EUGENE O’NEILL THEATER CENTER
WATERFORD, CT
PH [860] 443-5378 • FAX (860) 443-9653
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
…
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
How it works
- Paste your instructions in the instructions box. You can also attach an instructions file
- Select the writer category, deadline, education level and review the instructions
- Make a payment for the order to be assignment to a writer
- Download the paper after the writer uploads it
Will the writer plagiarize my essay?
You will get a plagiarism-free paper and you can get an originality report upon request.
Is this service safe?
All the personal information is confidential and we have 100% safe payment methods. We also guarantee good grades