Meet the Director of 99 HISTORIES

Artists at Play is thrilled to announce that the director for our production of 99 Histories will be Leslie Ishii. 

Leslie Ishii, director

A stage director, actor, teaching artist, and writer, Leslie is a faculty member in the East West Players Asian AmericanTheatre Conservatory (EWP) bringing her commitment to develop liberation and alliance building curriculums in combination with acting and Fitzmaurice Voicework® to EWP as well as Center Theatre Group’s (CTG) education programs. She is in her fifth season as part of Project Faculty for CTG’s Young Audiences Program, where she creates and executes curriculum, teacher-conferences and in-school visits throughout greater Los Angeles. Leslie recently directed a student production of Kimber Lee’s different words for the same thing. In conjunction with the world premiere of the play at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the project was for CTG’s pilot program Front And Center in a community partnership with Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts. 

Leslie has performed on Broadway, in regional theatre, was seen recurring on Lost, and on Desperate Housewives, HawthoRNe, The New Generation FAME and more. She has worked in every genre including film, television, commercials, print and continues to perform her solo piece, Watashi Niwa Jishinga Aru: I Have a Spine. On their main stage, Leslie directed EWP’s critically acclaimed Crimes of The Heart and their educational-tour shows, Taking Flight: The Story of Katherine Cheung and Dawn’s Light: The Gordon Hirabayashi Story. She has also assistant directed under Christopher Liam Moore for two seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) as a FAIR participant and will return to produce/direct a new initiative around the development of Asian Pacific Islander new work later in 2014. 

Leslie co-organized the first and co-directed the 2nd Freedom and Focus International Fitzmaurice Voicework® Conference in Barcelona and Vancouver, respectively. She continues to be a part of their international organizing team. Leslie was a co-organizer of a Los Angeles diversity/inclusion task force that presented the breakout session "Allies Eliminating Racism in Theatre" at the Theatre Communication Group’s (TCG) National Conference at Boston in June 2012, which led her to co-facilitating the first ever TCG Fall Forum on Diversity and Inclusion in November 2012, and OSF’s diversity/inclusion training sessions under the guidance of Carmen Morgan, the Director of Leadership Development for Interethnic Relations in November-December 2012. She will be presenting another breakout session, "Establishing Asian Pacific Islander Visibility In American Theatre," at the TCG National Conference in San Diego this month (June 2014). Leslie has been a keynote and featured presenter at voice and qualitative research conferences in Vancouver, BC; Mexico City, Mexico; Barcelona, Spain; and Vienna, Austria. 

99 Histories will have its run in September 2014. With Leslie on board at the helm, Artists at Play is even more excited to be staging this play. Stay in touch through our blog, Facebook, or Twitter as we continue to work towards opening! 

$10 early-bird special available now for 99 Histories! Purchase tickets here.