Manzanar: Our Town
by Hisashi Inoue

The Story

Incarcerated at a camp in Manzanar, California during WWII, five women of Japanese descent - a journalist, a rokyoku performer, a stage magician, a singer, and a film actress - are tasked with staging a propaganda play that paints the camp as a dreamland.

Characters

“Manzanar: Our Town” is a play about the resilience and solidarity of women in the face of adversity.

Sophia Okazaki

31, a Kibei Nisei--a Japanese American who was educated in Japan and came back to the U.S.

She’s the editor-in-chief of a Japanese newspaper in Los Angeles, as well as the leader of an amateur theater company.

Otome Amatsu

38, an Issei--1st generation immigrant from Japan

A female rokyoku (traditional Japanese singsong storytelling)

performer who used to be a migrant farm worker on the West Coast.

Sachiko Saito

Late 20s, a Nisei-- 2nd generation Japanese-American

A stage magician.

She speaks almost an unnatural degree of “You-Me English” (a mixture of Japanese and English often used by Japanese immigrants)

Lillian Takeuchi

18, Nisei,

A freshman at Pasadena College by day, a singer at Los Angeles

hotels by night.

Joyce Tachibana

22, Kibei Nisei

A film actress who forsook her dream job to combat prejudiced portrayals of Japanese people.

About

Manzanar: Our Town is a bilingual, multidisciplinary play about the Japanese-American incarceration during WWII. Through a fusion of Rokyoku storytelling, American and Japanese songs, and theatrical narrative that blends humor with history, the play tells a powerful yet heartwarming story of empowerment: finding one’s voice and standing together to overcome adversity.

Originally written by renowned Japanese playwright Hisashi Inoue and translated into English by James Yaegashi, this project brings the first English-language production to the United States.

Project History

May 2020

Online reading in its original Japanese language.

Fall - Winter 2025

Adaptation of the script and presentational reading of the new script.

Artist Portrait by Sea Dog Theater featuring Manzanar: Our Town English reading

May 2022

Translation of the script from Japanese to English and a workshop/reading* of the translated script in collaboration with Sea Dog Theater.

*Made possible in part with the support from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Japan Foundation New York, NYC Cultural Affairs, and Pentacle Unique project.