Jeanne Sakata is an actor and playwright. Jeanne recently performed in Daniel Akiyama’s A CAGE OF FIREFLIES at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, in SEVEN at USC, Julia Cho’s THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE at East West Players, and Don Nguyen’s RED FLAMBOYANT at Ojai Playwrights Festival. An LA Ovation Award winner for Best Lead Actress for her portrayal of Master Hua in Chay Yew’s RED at EWP, Jeanne has performed with The Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep, American Conservatory Theater, Northlight Theatre Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Rep, A Contemporary Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Syracuse Stage and Arizona Theatre Company, and is a member of LA’s renowned The Antaeus Company. Screen credits include TYLER PERRY’S MEET THE BROWNS, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, ER, THREAT MATRIX, LINE OF FIRE, PRESIDIO MED, AMERICAN FAMILY, NUMB3RS, John Ridley’s I GOT YOU, the MOW’s THE READING ROOM, HIROSHIMA, CONSENSUAL RELATIONS, and the feature films THE BABYMAKERS, XXX2: STATE OF THE UNION and AMERICAN FUSION.
Jeanne’s solo play HOLD THESE TRUTHS (formerly DAWN’S LIGHT: THE JOURNEY OF GORDON HIRABAYASHI) will have its New York premiere with the Epic Theatre Ensemble in October 2012. Originally produced at LA’s East West Players in 2007, the play was co-presented by the Japanese American National Museum, the UCLA Department of Asian American Studies, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. It was subsequently workshopped with the Epic, the Lark Play Development Center, and the New York Theatre Workshop at its 2009 Dartmouth Residency, and was also showcased at Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion with Silk Road Rising/Millennium Park as part of the Park’s 2011 IN THE WORKS New Plays Series. HOLD THESE TRUTHS is now part of the Library of Congress Playwrights Archive in the Asian American Pacific Islander Collection in Washington, DC.
Jeanne will speak about what inspired her to write the play, the research and interviews she used as her primary source material, the challenges in writing the play and getting it produced, and its developmental progress since its world premiere in 2007 at the East West Players in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. She will also screen the documentary film, A PERSONAL MATTER, from which she first learned of Gordon Hirabayashi’s story.