NAATCO

Romeo and Juliet (NAATCO/Two River Theater)

May 20, 2023

And the production is loaded with action. Except for the tender love scenes, the play moves at almost breakneck speed. Where most modern productions of Shakespeare tend toward languor, this "Romeo & Juliet," skillfully directed by the playwright and her co-director Dustin Wills, fills the moments that traditionally let the mind wander. A couple of back-to-back scenes that inform the audience, but with virtually the same content, are now played simultaneously. This makes the audience work more industriously to listen and separate out the conversations and Hansol Jung’s contemporary take on Shakespeare’s text make it that much easier to accomplish. [more]

The Trial of the Catonsville Nine

February 14, 2019

The 1970 play was originally adapted by playwright Saul Levitt (who previously turned the Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Andersonville" into a successful trial play) from Berrigan’s free verse version based exclusively on the trial transcript. Not seen in New York in 30 years, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" has been reimagined in a new version making use of additional sources by Jack Cummings III, artistic director of the innovative Transport Group theater company. A powerful experience, the revival proves to be a provocative investigation of what a citizen should do when he or she feels that the government is engaged in immoral actions. [more]

Henry VI (NAATCO)

August 22, 2018

Presented by NAATCO (National Asian American Theatre Company), it has a virtually all-Asian excellent cast of sixteen, several of whom play roles of opposite genders. Creatively conceived by Stephen Brown-Fried and superbly directed by him, his Orson Welles-like vision transcends the difficult material. This sterling production is also an inspired example of Americans succeeding at Shakespeare. [more]

Sagittarius Ponderosa

November 1, 2016

Founded in 1991, the National Asian American Theater Company’s mission is to present theater with all Asian-American casts. This is accomplished by producing classics of European and American works of dramatic literature, or adaptations of these works by Asian-American playwrights or new plays written by non-Asian Americans, not for or about Asian Americans. That last precept is the case of this East coast premiere of "Sagittarius Ponderosa." [more]

Charles Francis Chan, Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery

November 16, 2015

The National Asian American Theater Company’s world premiere of Lloyd Suh’s "Charles Francis Chan, Jr.’s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery" is best categorized as fiercely provocative satire. The play has two storylines. The first follows a 1960’s Frank who is developing and producing a murder mystery; the second being scenes from the aforementioned murder mystery, which is a stylized production featuring an Asian woman in white face as an elegant old debutant, and conversely an American Vietnam veteran in brown face as the Asian Detective Charles Chan, namesake to the production. [more]

Awake and Sing!

July 16, 2015

"Awake and Sing!" seems at first an odd choice for NAATCO, the acting company dedicated to the advancement of Asian actors, but after an initial wary uneasiness, the cast, under the direction of Stephen Brown-Fried, soon takes command of Odets’ dated language, a mixture of poetic metaphor and heightened colloquialisms which was difficult to speak even in the 1930’s. [more]