East West Players, the nation’s largest and longest-running Asian American theater company, has a long history of shining a spotlight on Asian American writers and actors in Los Angeles, with plays that explore everything from the history of Japanese internment camps to race relations in a modern-day beauty supply shop.
Now, the company’s longtime artistic director, Snehal Desai, is stepping into a new role as artistic director of the massive Center Theatre Group, during a moment when more Asian American-led stories are hitting main stages across the city and country.
And playwright Charlie James Oh, a recent Juilliard graduate, recently had the premier of his play, “Coleman 72,” at South Coast Repertory, where it is running for one more weekend.
The play features a Korean American family’s journey to Los Angeles from the Midwest, but Oh says the themes of the piece have resonated beyond just other Korean Americans.