Asian American Plays for a New Generation: Plays for a New Generation

2. Walleye Kid: The Musical

2 Walleye Kid: The Musical Music and Lyrics: Kurt Miyashiro Book: R. A. Shiomi and Sundraya Kase Introduction, by Josephine Lee W alleye Kid: The Musical was first produced by Mu Performing Arts and presented at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis from March 11, 2005, to March 27, 2005, under the direction of Jon Cranney. A revised version, directed by Jon Cranney, was presented at the Ordway Center ’s McKnight Theater from January 18, 2007, to February 3, 2007. After the Korean War ended in 1953, approximately 110,000 children were adopted from South Korea, with about 75,000 children going to the United States and the rest to such places as Canada, Australia, the Netherlands , Scandinavian countries, and Great Britain. In the 1980s, more than half of all foreign children adopted in the United States came from Korea. Until 1990, South Korea was the leading source of U.S. adopted children for more than three decades. (In 1991, Romania surpassed Korea.) Significantly, a sizable number of these children were adopted by white families and into nearly all-white communities. The psychologist Richard Lee persuasively describes what he calls the “transracial adoption paradox,” a set of contradictory experiences in which Asian adoptees who are raised by white families receive the benefits and privileges of whiteness yet face multiple instances Illustration: Sarah Ochs in Walleye Kid: The Musical. (Photograph used by permission of John Autey Photography.) 34 • Kurt Miyashiro, R. A. SHiomi, and Sundraya Kase of discrimination and racism.1 A desire to understand their racial difference and cultural heritage leads some adoptees to travel to Korea to seek out their affinities with their birth culture or to try to find their blood relatives. Yet Annie of Walleye Kid is a figure of fairytale, not a real-life subject. Real experiences, whether incidents of racism in small towns of the United States or the Korean War and its painful aftermath, are mediated through the conventions of the musical stage. Walleye Kid has had several incarnations: It was first staged as a play by R. A. Shiomi and Sundraya Kase in 1998, then as a musical with an original score by Kurt Miyashiro in 2004, and finally as this version, revised and revived for a production at the Ordway Center in 2007. It is hard not to glimpse in Annie, who fantasizes about her birth parents and embarks on an adventurous journey accompanied by a faithful non-human companion, the traces of another plucky musical orphan of the same name. Yet Walleye Kid is more directly indebted to the Japanese story of Momotaro. Like the Peach Boy, Annie is discovered from a non-human form (walleye) by a couple longing for a child and grows up to embark on a dangerous journey. About the Play Set The main upstage area has a raised walkway with a backdrop of a Korean landscape that is covered by a poster with Minnesota on it at various times. There are other movable flats and set pieces that can be used to indicate various other locations. Characters CAST OF CHARACTERS (production at Ordway Center for Performing Arts) Changgo Drummer Sangho Kim Omani/Teacher Wilson Momoko Tanno* Shaman Sara Ochs Mary/Ensemble Janet Hanson George/Ensemble William Gilness* Coach Nelson/Coach Kim/Ensemble Marcus Quiniones Aunt Hannah/Yoon Mi/Ensemble Jennifer Kelley Uncle Harlan/Ajishe/Ensemble Arnold Felizardo Grocer Olsen/Sung Say Nim/Ensemble Sherwin Resurreccion Inga/Ajima/Ensemble Jennifer Weir Annie Francesca Dawis Danny/Ensemble Tony Williams 1. Richard Lee, “The Transracial Adoption Paradox: History, Research, and Counseling Implications of Cultural Socialization,” Counseling Psychologist 31 (2003): 711–744. Walleye Kid: The Musical • 35 Betty/Ensemble Kira Church Johnny/Ensemble Dylan Church Alice/Ensemble Danielle Socha Billy/Ensemble Luke Thomley Janet/Ensemble Jenny LeDoux * Member of Actors’ Equity Association Act One Lights come up on changgo drummer playing softly on upstage walkway. Three dancers wearing traditional Korean mask dance costumes and masks and carrying hang sen enter the downstage area, followed by a young Korean woman in a neutral mask and contemporary clothing, carrying a baby in a basket. As the drummer picks up the beat into a roll, the woman follows the dancers around the stage until they kneel facedown downstage and she kneels upstage center of them. The drummer begins the mask dance song, and the dancers rise and perform the dance. At the end of the dance the dancers exit, leaving the woman...