Student director tackles ‘mixed race’ issuesPosted in Articles, Arts, Asian Diaspora, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2011-01-09 12:31Z by Steven |
Student director tackles ‘mixed race’ issues
Daily Titan
California State University, Fullerton
2009-05-17
Sean Belk
From hapa to mestizo to mulatto, ‘Half ‘n’ Half’ acts out stories and history of miscegenation. Bright colorful faces peered through shadows of the low-lit set.
The multi-cultural group of student actors then formed a circle, surrounding an infant, and simultaneously shouted, “What would it be like to shake someone’s hand and not know what they are?”
Then, the set went dark.
It was a small 30-minute production, but the subject matter touched on a big topic that some feel has gone under-reported – the aspect of growing up as two races and the discrimination that can go along with it.
The short sketch was part of the Cal State Fullerton Theatre and Dance Department’s Spring 2009 One Act performances, May 8 and 15 in the Arena Theatre, where advanced directing students presented short plays they had been working on throughout the semester for an audience of friends, family and faculty.
“Half ‘n’ Half,” an adaptation from a 1998 compilation of essays written by 17 writers and edited by Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn, was the only play with an original script adapted from a book. The play was partly written and directed by Lissa Supler, a 25-year-old senior theatre directing major.
Half Filipino and half caucasian, Supler wanted to both share her experience on the subject of being a “mixed race” and also educate people about the history of miscegenation, a term once used to describe interracial marriages that were illegal in the United States until a Supreme Court ruling in 1967…
Read the entire article here.