Showing results by narrator "Kurt Kanazawa" in All Categories

One morning, an old woman brings the little Toymaker a candy tin she played with as a girl. The little Toymaker takes the tin and TA-DA! comes back with a sparkling new toy for the old lady. But it seems that what she truly wants was lost a long time ago. And it will take all the Toymaker's skill, magic, and empathy to bring it back for her.

Two men, unified by a string of disappearances and deaths, search for answers—and salvation—in the jungles of Kaua‘i. Together, they must navigate the overlapping and complicated lines between a close-knit community and the hated, but economically-necessary corporate farms—and the decades old secrets that bind them.

Kohei Fujiwara has never seen a big ryū in real life. Those dragons all disappeared from Japan after World War II, and 20 years later, they've become the stuff of legend. Their smaller cousins, who can fit in your palm, are all that remain. And Kohei loves his ryū, Yuharu, but...Kohei has a memory of the big ryū. He knows that's impossible, but still, it's there, in his mind. In it, he can see his grandpa—Ojiisan—gazing up at the big ryū with what looks to Kohei like total and absolute wonder.

In this dramatic and pause-resisting narrative history of Japanese Americans before, during, and after their World War II incarceration, Susan H. Kamei weaves the voices of more than 130 individuals who lived through this tragic episode, most of them as young adults.

Peter Nguyen has achieved everything he ever wanted. So, why isn’t he happier? He goes to his high school reunion to show up all the people who didn’t give the time of day to the skinny, nerdy boy he’d been. But then, he runs into his old friend Britt.

Ken Narasaki's adaptation of the novel by Japanese American author John Okada is set during the aftermath of the US government's incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II and the resettlement of Japanese Americans to the West Coast. In the play, Ichiro returns to Seattle, where he struggles to transition into post-war life.

Aspiring fashion designer Adelaide Song wants to prove she’s more than just a pampered heiress. All she needs is a little courage - and the help of deliciously sexy Michael Reynolds, her childhood crush and her brother’s best friend. But when her secret crush turns into an illicit liaison, Adelaide realizes mixing business with pleasure spells trouble for all her plans....

Garrett Song is this close to taking the reins of his family’s LA fashion empire...until the Song matriarch insists he marries her handpicked bride first. To block her matchmaking, he recruits Natalie Sobol to pose as his wife. She needs a fake spouse as badly as he does. But when passion burns down their chaste agreement, the flames could destroy them all....

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US government sent thousands of Japanese American citizens to detention camps. In 1945, three Japanese-American sisters return to their farm in Stockton, California, after years in an internment camp, but the once prosperous family finds it’s not easy to pick up the pieces of their former lives. As the details of their deceased father’s final arrangements emerge, the sisters must work together to keep their dreams alive.

Before Guglielmo Marconi came along, there was no practical way to transmit telegraphic messages without wires. But when he harnessed the power of radio waves to send signals over long distances, what had once seemed impossible became a world-changing reality. In this original L.A. Theatre Works commission, we’ll get a firsthand, intimate view of the precocious Italian inventor, and what he had to overcome in his quest to revolutionize the way we communicate.

From the creator of Gibberish, a friendship story about different ways to think and create. It begins with two boys who together dream of sailing across the wide sea. As they grow and both become boat makers, their differences grow bigger and bigger. Van has a wild and fresh imagination, with tons of great ideas; but he has trouble with quality control. Minh is meticulous and strives for perfection; but he has trouble finishing even one boat! Only when the two friends reunite can they form a perfect team and reach their hearts’ desires.

This modern comic take on the American Revolution puts the spotlight on the relationship between the brilliant and domineering Ben Franklin and his son William. As Ben plants the seeds of a new republic, King George III appoints William as Royal Governor of New Jersey—a change in affairs that creates a revolutionary family rift.

Secretly, a man welds steel to a bulldozer. Later, another watches a ghost walk along his dry-walled hallways. A woman raises her teenage son in a homeless encampment where the boy has to fight to survive with the help of a strange, lonely cop. In Mililani Mauka, the lives of two families, the Motts and the Krills, come together as they try to keep afloat in a changing Honolulu, a city with growing suburbs and homeless camps.

In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful. In this stunning collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the stars are a diverse group of students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds.

Growing up, Wat Misaka wasn’t the tallest kid on the basketball court, but he was fast and he loved the game! In his Japanese American basketball league, Wat dribbled with speed and shared the ball as much as he scored. Encouraged by his father to always do his best, Wat applied this mindset to every challenge in his life. As Wat spent more time on the court, his passion for the game grew. He played in college at the University of Utah during WWII, a time when many Japanese Americans were stripped of their freedoms and incarcerated by the US government.

80-something Dan Yamada has been rendered speechless after a stroke, and as he lies in bed, he vividly recalls his life, from his days in the World War 2-era internment camps, to serving in the US Army, to his one true love. At his bedside in the present, his adult children fight over his care and legacy, all while Dan tries to communicate his poignant final wish.

When a new kid comes to stay with his grandmother at the house next door, Shermy’s plans for a quiet, relaxing summer are completely upended. That’s because Shake is nothing like Shermy. And Shermy is nothing like Shake. Shermy likes to read quietly in the shade of a tree. He knows the proper way to do a puzzle. He collects treasures in the pouch he wears around his neck, and the books on his shelves are alphabetized by author. Shake likes to play street hockey or space explorers. He gobbles up rocket ice pops and Toaster Tarts.

A sheet of ice sits in the desert of New Mexico. A mad eco-terrorist plants a bomb in order to save humankind. A beleaguered film crew tries to get in one last shot before losing the light. Storytelling and science collide with hilarious and devastating consequences.

When a mysterious customer tells Adam great things await him in the attic of his uncle’s bakery, he brushes off the exchange. It’s 1999 in New York City—and Adam has already met his fair share of oddballs and eccentrics. But days later, in the attic, Adam makes a discovery that quickly sets him off on a whirlwind adventure. And Adam soon suspects he may not be the only one aware of his extraordinary secret when a tall man with long eyebrows and a thin mustache appears to be following his every move. …