Theater Pioneer Ready To Move On
Bea Kiyohara didn't know what she was getting into.
A newly divorced mother with three small children, she only knew how much she wanted to get away from Kansas, and back to her native Washington. And how much she needed a job.
So she packed up the kids, moved to Seattle and took a receptionists' job at a community cultural organization called the Asian Multi Media Center. That was back in 1974.
Nearly two decades later, Kiyohara, a warm and determined woman with a ready smile, sits in her rambling Beacon Hill home drinking coffee and recalling those days. "I had to quit the job after a month because it didn't pay enough," she says, chuckling. "But I still believe the Asian Multi Media Center saved my life."
Kiyohara has paid back the favor with years of generous community service. Since 1978 she has served as the unpaid, much-loved artistic director of the Northwest Asian American Theatre, a group that grew out of the media center's drama program. She also spent six years on the King County Arts Commission and eight years on the board of the International District Preservation Development Authority.
Though she had to also work full time as a counselor and educator to support her two daughters and son (all now in their 20s), Kiyohara managed to keep alive what she calls a "comfortable space" for Seattle's Asian-American theater artists.
This year marks the NWAAT's 20th anniversary, and Kiyohara's 15th and final season as artistic director. Both occasions will be celebrated Saturday with a gala dinner and show at the Washington Athletic Club. Comedian Arnold Mukai is master of ceremonies, and Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang will deliver a keynote speech. (For ticket information, call 365-0282 or 763-4382.)
"I'm last on the agenda, and I'm still pondering what to say," muses Kiyohara.
One thing she won't say is sayonara.
Not that she has any qualms about relinquishing her post to the company's first full-time artistic director. She even is helping hire her replacement.
"Someone needs to be involved in the theater day-to-day," explains Kiyohara, who is dean of student development at Seattle Central Community College. "And I don't think any organization should have the same leadership for too long. You need new ideas, new energy."
But she intends to stay active on the board of the theater, and keep acting and directing. Kiyohara also might even put together a one-woman show.
"I just turned 50, so it will probably be about being a 50-year-old Asian-American woman," she says, with a laugh. "When you think about my generation, born just before the war, we've gone through quite a bit of history."
Kiyohara has helped make some history, too. Raised on an Auburn farm and educated at the University of Washington, she married and followed her husband to Kansas when he took a teaching job there.
But after her divorce and return to Seattle, Kiyohara became a pioneer in the Asian-American drama movement, which bloomed in the 1970s with the establishment of a network of community-based theater companies in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Hawaii and Toronto.
Like its "sister" theaters around the country, NWAAT (formerly the Asian Exclusion Act) introduced audiences to plays by Hwang, Philip Kan Gotanda, Wakako Yamauchi and other authors of Asian descent.
"We've been here as a voice for the community," Kiyohara points out. "When we began, Asian Americans had never seen plays about themselves. It was so healing that we could start dealing with political and personal issues through the medium of theater."
Another mission: giving young people stage tutelage and experience. "Training has been a real problem for Asian Americans because acting is not something that's revered in our community," explains Kiyohara, who earned a drama degree at UW despite her parents' objections.
NWAAT has its share of success stories to brag about. Actors who started with the company include Wendy Takuda, now a prominent TV newswoman; Richard Eng, who runs his own theater in New York; Leslie Iishi, featured in the Broadway musical "Shogun"; and actress Amy Hill.
Another accomplishment Kiyohara points to with pride: the acquisition of the Theatre Off Jackson, NWAAT's permanent home base. "That was a long, long struggle," she recalls.
After years of politicking and fund raising, NWAAT finally moved into the basement theater at Seventh and Jackson in 1988. Among Kiyohara's favorite shows there: Gotanda's "The Wash" and local writer Gary Iwamoto's popular musical about a beauty contest in a World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans, "Miss Minadoka."
NWAAT faces different artistic challenges in its next 20 years, Kiyohara says. "I think the issues in the plays are changing. The first generation of Asian-American writers dealt with the trauma of the internment camps, and other specific things. Now we're getting much more universal. We're talking more about the human condition, the experiences all human beings share."