Asian Story Theater

Mission:
Asian Story Theater seeks to broaden multicultural awareness and understanding by dramatizing Asian and Pacific Island (API) stories, arts, and themes for family audiences.

History and Future:

Asian Story Theater began in 1989, dramatizing Chinese folk tales as a project sponsored by the San Diego Chinese Center. The first production was The White Snake (1989-90), presented at the Lyceum Space Theatre and subsequently toured to county schools, libraries, and recreation centers. In 1991 the company staged it's first adaptation based on the 16th century fantasy novel Journey to the West, featuring the Monkey King. Additional productions followed each year (see the History links on our homepage). In 1995 the company incorporated as the Asian Story Theater, independent of the San Diego Chinese Center, to diversify programming and expand touring operations to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Each year since, we have produced at least one production in pursuit of our mission. Touring and scale of production has varied widely, depending on funding, talent, and venue availability. Ongoing challenges in working with school audiences have led us to increasingly diverse efforts, this year including a full-length musical about the artist Paul Gauguin (August-September 2011), as well as partnering to produce a pilot television episode, based on our 2006 project Shave Ice (December 2011). We are also commmitted to continuing a series of relatively small, annual theater productions related to the Lunar New Year Celebrations--for at least the next 6 years!