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 。