Apple TV+ PACHINKO Season 2
Haruna recently wrapped the writers room of Pachinko S2!
The Subtext Podcast: Toward Liberation with Haruna Lee
From American Theatre: Each month Brian James Polak (he/him) talks to playwrights about the things usually left unsaid. In conversations that dive into life’s muck, we learn what irks, agitates, motivates, inspires and—ultimately—what makes writers tick.
For the final episode of 2021, Brian talks to the writer of ‘Suicide Forest’ about roles that are different than, and closer to, their true self.
Lee wins a 2021 Steinberg Playwright Award
Lee wins a Steinberg Playwriting Award along with 10 other incredible early-to-mid-career playwrights, each receiving $10,000. Learn more about the award and the other playwrights here.
Feminist Theatre Past and Present: Performance in the Post-Wave Panel
The “Performance in the Post-Wave” panel will feature Brooke O’Harra of the Dyke Division of the Theater of a Two-Headed Calf, Tina Satter of Half Straddle, Haruna Lee, and Aladrian C. Wetzel and Christen Cromwell of Two Strikes Theatre Collective. It’s moderated by Dr. Jessica Del Vecchio, James Madison University.
After the energetic and effective women’s movements of the ‘80s and ‘90s, the U.S. seemed to slip into a postfeminist malaise. Today, a renewed interest in feminism has brought a fresh group of innovative, gender-troubling artists to the fore. Drawing inspiration from performances of the past, today’s work is “post-wave” in its depiction of feminism as an intergenerational and inclusive practice.
This is the third in a three-part panel series, “Feminist Theatre: Past and Present,” that celebrates the 50th anniversary of Cornell University’s women’s studies program — now Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies — as well as the 30th year of its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Studies specialty. Each panel highlights a different moment in feminist and lesbian performance history along with how artists and scholars interpret them.
This series is sponsored by Cornell’s Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (FGSS) and LGBT Studies programs; Cornell’s Department of Performing and Media Arts; James Madison University; CloseToHome Productions; and the Women and Theatre Program of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
"The Watering Hole" Featured in New York Times Arts & Leisure
Photos by Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times, article by Laura Collins-Hughes
Read the full New York Times Article “With Healing in Mind, Stage Collaborators Take a Dip Together”
THE WATERING HOLE
Signature Theatre Company
June 22, 2021 - August 8, 2021
BUY TICKETS
Conceived of and Created by Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon
In Partnership With:
Christina Anderson, Matt Barbot, Montana Levi Blanco, Stefania Bulbarella, Amith Chandrashaker, nicHi douglas, Iyvon E., Justin Ellington, Emmie Finckel, Vanessa German, Ryan J. Haddad, Riccardo Hernández, Phillip Howze, Haruna Lee, Campbell Silverstein, Charly Evon Simpson and Rhiana Yazzie
Over a year after closing our doors, Signature Theatre is excited to present The Watering Hole, an immersive experience envisioned by resident playwright Lynn Nottage, director Miranda Haymon, and a renowned group of creative designers. This grand experiment deviates from the norm, presenting a new kind of theatre—one that is collaborative, accessible and safe.
In-person, physically distanced audiences will move through a series of installations entirely curated by creatives of color at the beloved Pershing Square Signature Center. The multidimensional and multidisciplinary pieces disrupt traditional notions of theatre-making and challenge viewers to converse with what is most essential to us all, water. Excerpts from the in-person experience will also be available online in order to bring The Watering Hole to as far an audience as possible.
Bret Adams & Paul Reisch Foundation Idea Awards 2021
Haruna receives the 2021 Ollie New Play Award with Agyeiwaa Asante. Learn more about the award here.
HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant
Haruna is writing on HBO MAX’s thriller THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT Season 2!
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award 2021
Haruna receives the FCA Grants to Artists Award for Performance Art/Theater 2021, an unrestricted $40,000 award to twenty artists in across the field of dance, music/sound, performance art/theater, poetry, and the visual arts.
Learn more about the award here.
Haruna wins a 2020 Obie Award for Conception & Writing of Suicide Forest!
Full of heart & joy & melancholy & all the complex feelings to be receiving a digital Obie Award this year. Below is the full citation from the Obie Judges:
Haruna Lee, for the Conception and Writing of Suicide Forest (Ma-Yi Theater Company, Bushwick Starr)
”This supremely idiosyncratic new work draws from the sticky-floor tradition of a New York theater in which the inexplicable and the undeclared defy an exact interpretation, the world of the pleasurably and provokingly half unknowable. For this generous and original fusing of theatrical idiom, for their heartfelt and complex exploration of which of our identities define us and guide us and when and how, the judges have awarded an Obie for the Conception and Writing of SUICIDE FOREST to HARUNA LEE.”
∞
my humble gratitudes:
“We have to reclaim the sacred ground from which the world is made- our imaginations. There is a part of each of us that can see beyond what exists.”
– from Dream Beyond the Wounds by Adrienne Maree Brown
∞
A moment to touch my Taiwanese and Japanese ancestors:
To them who have been fiercely guiding me through the Unknown channels,
And to all those of the Asian Diaspora-
Especially women / trans / femme / non binary folx-
I walk alongside you.
Another moment to touch the incredible upheaval and uprising:
To pour my love into this fight for Black liberation and my BIPOC beloveds;
Love only continues to liberate me.
And much gratitude for:
The Obie Committee
The Suicide Forest Leadership Team: Aya Ogawa, John Del Gaudio, Denise Shu Mei, and Melissa Liu
The Entire Cast & Creative Team of Suicide Forest 2019 & 2020 Productions
Ralph Peña, Jorge Ortoll, Sarah Hanlon, Jesse Jae Hoon Eisnenberg and Ma-Yi Theater Co.
Noel Allain, Sue Kessler and The Bushwick Starr
John Wiszniewski and Everyman Agency
Kevin Lin, Jiah Shin, Angela Dallas and CAA
Britton Rizzio, Michael Claassen and Writ Large
Kate Kremer at 53rd State Press and the Contributors to the Publication of Suicide Forest: Aya Ogawa, Sasha Arutyunova, JP Kim, Diep Tran and Jesse Cameron Alick
The WTFNB (women-trans-femme-non binary) Asian Diasporic Potluck
The WTFNB Community Engagement Facilitators & Speakers
The harunalee co. members: Butler, Swan, Karen, Sarah, Sasha, Greg, and Stivo
My Brooklyn College Playwriting Cohort
My Dear Ones Andrew Bartels & Matt Romein
My Beautiful friends and chosen family who continue to support and nurture me
My sweet sibling Erika Reyna,
And of course!
To my mother Aoi Lee, who showed up with courage and walked through this portal with me.
To Aya Ogawa, my forever collaborator who I'll mention over and over again.
To Adrienne Kennedy for showing me the simultaneity of psychic worlds.
To the Aokigahara Forest, for allowing me to harness its power towards a creative purpose.
∞
And to all who witnessed this work. Who whole-heartedly encouraged me, and supported it.
心から感謝をしています 。