Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Place to Be...

Our friends over at Nishi Hongwanji Temple are having a performance fundraiser featuring Nihonmachi: the Place to Be. The musical made its debut in San Francisco in 2006, and has since made its rounds in San Jose's Japantown and Little Tokyo.

I had a chance to see it when the play helped raise money for the Little Tokyo Public Safety Association earlier this year, and which also celebrated Brian Kito of Fugetsu-Do. The story is loosely based on his life and his 105 year-old manju-ya.

I'm not a big musical fan, but I did enjoy watching Nihonmachi. It's campy, funny, and sends some pretty important messages about family, history, and urban development. Go check it out.

$20 Admission
1 PM Sunday, October 19th
Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple
815 E. First Street / 90012
info: Dianne Odagawa 626/571-1336

1 comments:

vkm said...

I saw it there too. It was a really great show. It was a little nostalgic for me because I recognized a lot of the songs from my parents.

The playwright contributed an article about writing the play on Discover Nikkei:

Nihonmachi: The Place to Be
by Soji Kashiwagi
http://www.discovernikkei.org/forum/en/node/1564