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Rick Shiomi is artistic director and founding member of Theatre Mu.
Shiomi was born in Toronto but used his experiences as a Japanese Canadian living on Vancouver's Cordova Street to create a Sam Spade-styled detective named Sam Shikaze as the protagonist for his first play, Yellow Fever. Successfully produced throughout the United States, including New York, Yellow Fever launched Shiomi's career as a playwright. Written with Sundraya Kase, The Walleye Kid is a fable combining Asian tales, midwest traditions and stories of Korean adoptees. Tale of the Dancing Crane is an adaptation of an Asian folktale: a story of a man who accidentally shoots a crane and is later visited by a beautiful young lady who is really the bird in disguise.
Rick Shiomi comments on Cordova Street: "I used to live on Cordova Street and I'd look out on Oppenheimer Park and think, 'I wonder what it'd be like to be involved in the Japanese Canadian Community? I wonder who these people are?' I'd grown up and worked in a mixed, mainstream Canadian environment. In the previous four of five years I'd been living in, basically, a couterculture milieu. I'd explored all these different areas but there was this one huge area called Japanese Canadian which I hadn't really touched. So I thought, 'Well, I'll take a look at this.' Of course, to my huge surprise, that's where everything was."
Plays:
Yellow Fever (Playwrights Cannada, 1984)
Once is Never Enough (1984)
Rosie's Cafe (1990)
Theatre Ball, Uncle Tadao (1990)
The Walley Kid (1998)
Dancing Crane (1999)
[BCBW 1992] "Theatre" "Japanese"
Shiomi was born in Toronto but used his experiences as a Japanese Canadian living on Vancouver's Cordova Street to create a Sam Spade-styled detective named Sam Shikaze as the protagonist for his first play, Yellow Fever. Successfully produced throughout the United States, including New York, Yellow Fever launched Shiomi's career as a playwright. Written with Sundraya Kase, The Walleye Kid is a fable combining Asian tales, midwest traditions and stories of Korean adoptees. Tale of the Dancing Crane is an adaptation of an Asian folktale: a story of a man who accidentally shoots a crane and is later visited by a beautiful young lady who is really the bird in disguise.
Rick Shiomi comments on Cordova Street: "I used to live on Cordova Street and I'd look out on Oppenheimer Park and think, 'I wonder what it'd be like to be involved in the Japanese Canadian Community? I wonder who these people are?' I'd grown up and worked in a mixed, mainstream Canadian environment. In the previous four of five years I'd been living in, basically, a couterculture milieu. I'd explored all these different areas but there was this one huge area called Japanese Canadian which I hadn't really touched. So I thought, 'Well, I'll take a look at this.' Of course, to my huge surprise, that's where everything was."
Plays:
Yellow Fever (Playwrights Cannada, 1984)
Once is Never Enough (1984)
Rosie's Cafe (1990)
Theatre Ball, Uncle Tadao (1990)
The Walley Kid (1998)
Dancing Crane (1999)
[BCBW 1992] "Theatre" "Japanese"
