Aya Ogawa '92

In March of 2020, writer, director, and distinguished Japanese drama translator Aya Ogawa ‘92 was in the middle of a run of a show that had won an Obie Award and was transitioning from an experimental theater in Brooklyn to Off-Broadway. Aya poignantly recalls the beginning of the pandemic, “The whole city closed--the costumes and set were left in the theater for months. It was really weird to think of it all suspended there, painful to think about the set just hanging…”

During the following year Aya would use their creativity to find new ways to engage themself and others in theater arts from afar. They were hired to teach workshop courses for Yale School of Drama and had the opportunity to virtually interact with students across the country. Impressively, Aya was even able to transform an act of their 2015 play Ludic proxy: Fukushima, based on the earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, to an interactive “choose your own adventure” virtual experience. Each user would make choices and navigate the narrative independently. Aya explains, “[It was] not just about the enjoyment for the audience but making the audience aware of their decisions, the decisions of others, and to think, “where am I placing myself in this narrative?’” Watch the artist describe this piece from its original conception to its new adapted form here. 

After 18 months, Aya Ogawa will grace the stage again this October. They will be presenting their own piece entitled The Nosebleed. Details from Japan Society website: 

“Japanese American playwright/director Aya Ogawa presents this final version of their intimate autobiographical piece that explores their fractured relationship with their long-deceased, enigmatic father...Through a series of turbulent, absurd and poignantly comic vignettes, Ogawa reveals the seemingly insurmountable cultural and generational gap between themself and their father, who was a typical Japanese corporate businessman, and examines the questions faced by the playwright in their own motherhood experience today. A theatrical memorial and healing ritual for the audience, this darkly humorous, tender and inventive play considers how we inherit and bequeath failure, and what it takes to forgive.”

The show will open Oct 1 and run through Oct 10 at Japan Society in New York City. Get your tickets here and use code HANAJI21 for a discount opening weekend!

Explore more from this incredible creator on their website: AyaOgawa.com 

Break a leg, Aya!