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32-471: The Asian American Theater Company was established in 1973 by playwrights Frank Chin and Melvyn Escueta , among others, to develop and present original works of theatre about Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander descent . AATC is credited as a progenitor of the Asian-American theater movement alongside East West Players and Pan Asian Repertory Theatre . In addition to being a producing company, AATC

64-502: A Chinese American language that is self-referential and that will relate to others", and that he begins to realize by the end of the play that he needs to turn to the history and stories about Chinese America, such as those stories of the Old West he had heard from his grandmother; in this way, Chinese American men will no longer be passively created by American Orientalism, but will gain the ability to create themselves. In her introduction to

96-622: A documentary short in 1972, The Last Temple about the Taoist temple in Hanford, California , which dates back to 1893, and the effort to preserve and restore it. Theatre Communications Group produced the Legacy Leaders of Color Video Project , a series highlighting influential figures in the American minority theaters. Set to be released in 2017, one of the episodes focuses on Frank Chin, his time with

128-596: A reporter for KING-TV in Seattle. Chin is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre . He co-founded the Asian American Theater Company with Filipino-American playwright Melvyn Escueta in 1973. His play The Chickencoop Chinaman was the first by an Asian-American to be produced on a major New York stage. As an author, Chin has won three American Book Awards : the first in 1982 for his plays The Chickencoop Chinaman and The Year of

160-427: A very busy man,' and I said, 'You're a working stiff like me - you have a decision Friday and I don't care what it is. Either I've graduated or I haven't graduated because I have to get back to work.' Friday, I walked by the office and the secretary jumps up and says: 'You've graduated!' I said, 'That's all I want to know'." Early in his career, Chin worked as a story editor and scriptwriter on Sesame Street and as

192-534: A year of courses in acting, scene study, voice and movement and playwright's workshops, conducted by professional artists is also offered. The group also hosts staged readings, where scripts under development are directed, rehearsed and presented, followed by discussion and critique. Many well known Asian American actors and playwrights have been associated with AATC productions in the past. Notable alumni include: Frank Chin Frank Chin (born February 25, 1940)

224-661: Is a 1972 play by Frank Chin . It was the first play written by an Asian American to have a major New York production. Tam Lum, a Chinese American filmmaker working on a documentary about a black boxer named Ovaltine, has arrived in Pittsburgh to visit Ovaltine's father, Charley Popcorn. In Pittsburgh, he stays with his childhood friend, the Japanese American Kenji, who lives in Pittsburgh's black ghetto with his girlfriend Lee and her son. In Act I, Tam has just arrived and

256-505: Is a sequel to The Chickencoop Chinaman and follows the further adventures of Tam Lum, the original work's protagonist. Stereotypes of Asian Americans and traditional Chinese folklore are common themes in much of his work. Many of his works revolve around criticism of the racism in the United States. Frank Chin has accused other Asian American writers, particularly Maxine Hong Kingston , of furthering such stereotypes and misrepresenting

288-760: Is a workshop where Asian Pacific Islander writers, actors and directors can explore ideas and create works that carry with them the AATC's purpose, which is to explore who Asian Pacific Islander Americans are as a people and as a community. For many years, the Asian American Theater Company was housed in The Asian American Theater Center located near the corner of Arguello and Clement Streets in San Francisco's ethnically diverse Richmond district. The Theater Center suffered much damage from

320-614: Is able to connect his masculinity to his heritage; in the meantime, he is, as Kim says, "still experimenting". The character of Tam is in many ways the continuation of such earlier Chin characters as Johnny from "Food for All His Dead", Freddy (later renamed Dirigible) from "Yes, Young Daddy" and Dirigible from "Goong Hai Fot Choy". As in those stories (some of which are available in revised versions in The Chinaman Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co. ), he looks outside of Chinatown—and outside Asian America—for models. But everywhere he looks,

352-777: Is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre . Frank Chin was born in Berkeley, California on February 25, 1940. His grandfather worked on the Western Pacific Railroad . He remained under the care of a retired vaudeville couple in Placerville, California until he was 6. At that time, his mother brought him back to the San Francisco Bay Area and thereafter Chin grew up in Oakland Chinatown . He attended

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384-655: Is catching up with Kenji. In Act II, the two men meet with Charley and bring him back to the apartment, where Lee's ex-husband has shown up to take her back. These scenes are intercut with fantasy sequences, such as one in which Tam meets his childhood hero, the Lone Ranger . The American Place Theatre , 27 May 1972. Directed by Jack Gelber ; scenery by John Wulp ; costumes by Willa Kim ; lighting by Roger Morgan . With Randall Duk Kim , Sab Shimono , Sally Kirkland , Anthony Marciona , Leonard Jackson , Calvin Jung, and Joanna Pang in

416-806: The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake , but was able to re-open its doors a year later. However, the costly repairs created a heavy economic burden and in 1996 the Asian American Theater Company moved its administrative offices to Japantown , and produced its plays in various theater venues throughout the city such as the Off-Market Theater and the Thick House. Today the administrative offices reside in San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood at 1695 18th Street. Under its Emerging Artists Project, young actors, many of whom are making their acting debut, perform plays by new playwrights or revivals of classics by established artists. A training program consisting of two semesters

448-660: The University of California, Berkeley , where he contributed to the California Pelican . He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965. According to Chin, who had returned from a sabbatical working as the first Chinese brakeman for the Southern Pacific railroad, he intimidated a dean into graduating him with a bachelor's degree in English: "[I said] 'I want a decision by Friday' and he said, 'Well, I'm

480-477: The flamenco guitar . After a stroke in 1990, he lost his ability to play the guitar and, temporarily, to laugh. Chin was married for five years to Kathy Chang in the 1970s. Kathleen Chang (October 10, 1950 – October 22, 1996), was better known by her performance name Kathy Change . She was a Sino-American political activist, writer, and performance artist. The Year of the Dragon was an adaptation of Chin's play of

512-484: The 1970s; Chin contributed an afterword which can be found in every reprinting of the novel. Chin has appeared in Jeff Adachi 's The Slanted Screen , a 2006 documentary film about stereotypical depictions of Asian males in American cinema. Chin was also an instrumental organizer for the first Day of Remembrance . Chin is also a musician. In the mid-1960s, he taught Robbie Krieger , a member of The Doors , how to play

544-580: The Asian American Theater Company, and Chin's influence. In 2019, It Takes a Lunatic a Netflix distributed documentary about Wynn Handman was released. Handman had produced Chin's two plays at the American Place Theatre, and Chin was one of the interview subjects. Be Water , a 2020 episode of the ESPN documentary series 30 for 30 about Bruce Lee , featured archival footage of Chin. The Chickencoop Chinaman The Chickencoop Chinaman

576-560: The Dragon , the second in 1989 for a collection of short stories entitled The Chinaman Pacific and Frisco R.R. Co. , and the third in 2000 for lifetime achievement. His full length novel, Confessions of a Number One Son: The Great Chinese American Novel , was written in the early 1970s, but was not published until nearly four decades later (2015) by Calvin McMcmillin, a literary scholar specializing in Asian American literature. The work

608-564: The Lone Ranger signifies his interest in the history and legends of the Old West, especially the contributions and sufferings of the Chinese immigrants who helped build the railroads and who became the first Chinese Americans; Chin considers their stories to be as important to Chinese American history as those of the Chinese classic about oppressed rebels who challenge the Emperor's authority, Outlaws of

640-600: The Marsh . At the same time, his use of language represents his admiration for the Black Power movement and their fight against institutionalized racism and white dominance; his characters speak an English that is inflected with both Cantonese and black vernacular elements. David Leiwei Li points out that this language reflects Tam's rebellion against the Orientalist American construction of Asian American and wants "to claim

672-496: The activist blog "Big WOWO." In addition to his work as an author and playwright, Frank Chin has also worked extensively with Japanese American resisters of the draft in WWII. His novel, Born in the U.S.A. , is dedicated to this subject. Chin was one of several writers ( Jeffery Paul Chan , Lawson Fusao Inada , and Shawn Wong of CARP, Combined Asian American Resources Project) who worked to republish John Okada 's novel No-No Boy in

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704-455: The bath out of fear of being watched by old white women—Tam uses Ovaltine as his model for masculinity; but he finds out later that Ovaltine had made up his stories about Charley being his father, and he also learns that the old man he cared for (whom everyone else assumes is his father) was in fact extremely dignified and loved to watch boxing matches. As scholar Jinqi Ling notes, Tam's inability to see [the dishwasher's] dignity represents not only

736-542: The characters, the situations, and much of the writing, but felt that the monologues were "hot air, disguised as Poetry". Audiences were critical too, as author Betty Lee Sung points out that many members left midway through. The play is a direct attack on the John Chinaman stereotype that continued to affect Chinese American men and an attempt to investigate what Chin perceives to be the cultural emasculation of Asian American by racist stereotypes. The main character of

768-415: The historical and cultural effects of racism on Asian American men, but also the role of language and story in capturing and passing on a new, heroic Asian American masculinity. As scholar Elaine H. Kim notes, Tam is only good for his ability to out-talk people, and even though he has given up his self-delusions and let go of the idea that he could be like the black men he admires, he will remain so until he

800-460: The lead roles. Although the play won the 1971 East West Players playwrighting contest, the reviews of the New York production were mixed. Positive reviews came from Edith Oliver at The New Yorker and Jack Kroll at Newsweek , but neither Clive Barnes nor Julius Novick of The New York Times enjoyed it. A middle-of-the-road review came from The Village Voice 's Michael Feingold , who liked

832-431: The models of fatherhood are absent or ambiguous: he rarely mentions his own children; his best friend Kenji seems to be refusing to acknowledge having a child of his own; Ovaltine has fabricated stories about his father (who was in fact only his manager). The only male character in the play who seems eager to embrace fatherhood is Tom, a Chinese American who has bought into the model minority myth of Asian American while, at

864-500: The play, Tam Lum, is a Chinese American filmmaker who, as a boy in search of heroic Chinese American models listened to the Lone Ranger radio shows and believed that the Ranger wears a mask because he is in fact a Chinese man intent on bringing "Chinaman vengeance on the West". Seeing the men of his parents' generation as unheroic—he used to care for an elderly dishwasher who wore his underwear in

896-503: The riot scene. Chin would go on to criticize the movie in the May 1976 issue of Mother Jones . What's Wrong with Frank Chin is a 2005 biographical documentary, directed by Curtis Choy, about Chin's life. Frank Chin was interviewed in the documentary The Slanted Screen (2006), directed by Jeff Adachi , about the representation of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood. Chin wrote

928-503: The same name. Starring George Takei , the film was televised in 1975 as part of the PBS Great Performances series. As an actor, Chin, appeared as an extra in the riot scene of the made-for-TV movie adaptation of Farewell to Manzanar . Chin was one of several Asian American writers who appeared in the movie; Shawn Wong and Lawson Fusao Inada , who, like Chin were co-editors of the anthology Aiiieeeee! , also acted in

960-518: The same time, arguing that Tam needs to accept that they are Chinese rather than Americans. Chin has described Tam as the "comic embodiment of Asian-American manhood", a character designed to capture the experience of Asian American men—not just their circumstances, but their language, their symbols, their humor and their mythology. Yet critics such as Kim feel that Chin has not quite achieved his own goal, and that perhaps Chin has too readily accepted an oppressive definition of masculinity. Chin's use of

992-573: The script for the 1967 documentary And Still Champion! The Story of Archie Moore . Chin's script was narrated by actor Jack Palance . Some of Chin's experiences would be worked into his first play, in which the protagonist is making a documentary about a boxer. Chin researched and hosted Chinaman's Chance (1972) an Ene Riisna directed documentary focusing on the conditions of Chinatown communities in America. Interview subjects included Roland Winters , Betty Lee Sung , and Ben Fee . Chin also directed

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1024-408: The traditional stories. Chin also has been highly critical of American writer Amy Tan for her telling of Chinese-American stories, indicating that her body of work has furthered and reinforced stereotypical views of this group. On a radio program, Chin has also debated the scholar Yunte Huang regarding the latter's evaluation of Charlie Chan in his writing. This discussion was later evaluated on

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