Fall 2013 Production

Michael Golamco, playwright

Artists at Play is proud to announce that our 2013 fall production will be the Los Angeles premiere of Cowboy Versus Samurai by Michael Golamco.

In this comic re-imagining of Cyrano de Bergerac, Travis Park is a high school English teacher and the only Korean American living in the dusty town of Breakneck, Wyoming. When Veronica Lee, a Korean American teacher from New York City, moves into town, he immediately falls for her. Travis must choose between the Asian and the American within himself as he pursues a love that may only be as real as the love letters he writes for someone else. Through irony, humor and social commentary, Cowboy Versus Samurai cleverly exposes the struggle of Asian Americans to find their place in the vast American landscape… and with each other.

The world premiere of Cowboy Versus Samurai was produced by NAATCO, the National Asian American Theater Company, in New York City in November, 2005. Since then it has been produced in Minneapolis (Mu Performing Arts); Seattle (SiS Productions); San Francisco (AATC); Vancouver, British Columbia (VACT); San Diego, California (Mo’olelo); Dallas, Texas; and Hong Kong by the Looking Glass Theater Company.  Cowboy Versus Samurai was selected by the Tribeca Film Instititute for its All Access Open Stage Program, and is available in print in Smith and Kraus’s New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2006 and The Best Stage Scenes of 2006.

A rising star in American theatre, Michael's most recent play Build was produced at the Geffen Playhouse and before that Year Zero was produced at the Colony Theatre. In addition to the Geffen and the Colony, Michael's plays have been produced at NYC’s Second Stage Theatre, Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Guthrie, and many others around the country and internationally. Year Zero was the Grand Prize winner of Chicago Dramatists’ Many Voices Project and was nominated for a Jeff Award for Best New Work. Michael has received playwriting commissions from Second Stage, South Coast Repertory, and the Geffen. He is also a recipient of a Helen Merrill Award and a current resident of New Dramatists.

We are thrilled to be working with Michael along with our own Peter J. Kuo who will direct the show.  Join us this fall for the L.A. premiere of Cowboy Versus Samurai!