By Chiori Miyagawa

Project Y | Women in Theatre Festival | 2017

World Premiere

With choreography by Sonoko Kawahara

"Even though it [2016 election] was a national loss, I kept thinking about it as personal," says Chiori Miyagawa. "Being American wasn't a birthright to me. I chose it. I was born in Japan and I had to give up my citizenship, but I just felt nationless after the election. I began writing haiku as a way to let out bursts of anger. I sent one to the founder of the festival and said, 'This is what I think I am going to write about.'"

a man bumped into me
my wish-fulfilling jewel
span away forever

At the start of In the Line, the protagonist is waiting in line to vote, but a man bumps into her and she drops her "wish-fulfilling jewel." She spends the rest of the play trying to find it. "I based that idea on something from Tibetan Buddhism," Miyagawa says. The missing object, which is never clearly defined, can represent many things: "our hope for the future of this country, our trust in humanity, sanity, all of those things I am questioning," she says. —-from “Creating Art That’s Timely and Timeless,” by Raven Snook, TDF.org

Featuring: Sol Marina Crespo,* Christina Liang,* Sade Namei,* Kristen Kittel,* Ashley Jones, Vichet Chum,* Daniel Petzold,* Madalyn Pedone, Monica Rounds, Tomoko Tokugaki, Norihiro Maruta, Kaho Furuta, and Patricia Cancio

"Kristin Horton’s well-calibrated direction results in affective performances from the cast and yields visually precise physical staging on the bare space.  This stagecraft is complemented by Sonoko Kawahara’s accomplished choreography with its arresting tableaus, freezes and glorious movement, especially a slow motion sequence at a rock club.

In the Line is a vibrant and theatrically realized mediation on contemporary life, with all of its randomness and surprising degrees of separation." - Darryl Reilly, Theater Scene