Since the start of the pandemic last year, Asian Americans have faced constant and deadly racist violence. “Stop AAPI Hate,” a reporting database, received 3,795 reports of anti-Asian-American discrimination between March 19, 2020, and Feb. 28, 2021; women reported hate incidents at 2.3 times the rate of men. The LA Writers Center asked "what can we do?" We think by telling more Asian American stories, we can affirm that this community is a vital part of the American narrative. With this in mind, we are launching the "Home: Asian Voices Reading Series".

The 2016 Latinx Theatre Commons Pacific Northwest Regional convening brought together over eighty Latinx and allied teatristas or theatremakers to the Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre, University of Washington School of Drama in Seattle, Washington to engage in a national dialogue on the building a Latinax Theatre movement in the Pacific Northwest.

The events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have dragged performers into a sort of ideological rabbit hole, entirely dislocated from the artifice and audiences that comprise the more familiar theatrical experience. After more than a year of adapting rehearsals and sharing Zoom link tickets, many of these changes have forced artists to reimagine every aspect of their work on both sides of the curtain. Puppetry—with a unique and diverse relationship to theatrical space, and the plasticity of its performers—has, historically, found itself well-positioned to thrive in ever changing, often hidden, and deliberately reimagined environments like the ones we endure today. This series draws on work by a wide range of professionals hailing from both academic and performance fields to explore the unique power of puppets in their spaces, existing between the real and imagined, supremely adaptable to a world turned upside down.

Kunafa and Shay will focus on MENA theatre post-9/11 to today - highlighting contemporary MENA plays and playwrights, spotlighting international community-engaged work in the Arab world, and pondering the present and future of MENA theatre in the US.

This series aims to build a deeper understanding of what work is being done and engage in discussions around the impact of structural oppression on our communities, the social position of designers in the larger theatre industrial complex, the interconnectedness of artistry and advocacy, and strategies for co-creating a roadmap into the future.