Friends Across the Wires Stage Play

The Seattle Historical Theatre Project Presents
Friends Across Wires
Friday, April 7th, at 7:30p

The Seattle Historical Theatre Project is pleased to present their theatre production of Friends Across the Wires, an original play exploring the impact of the WWII Japanese American Incarceration on young people in Seattle. The play follows best friends Kiyoko and Peggy, students at Seattle’s Broadway High School, from the bombing of Pearl Harbor through the end of Kiyoko’s incarceration at Minidoka. Extensively researched and built from personal interviews, primary sources, and other historical material, the play is designed to teach about the Incarceration while examining themes of friendship, injustice, and resilience.

The play will be presented at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center on Friday, April 7th, at 7.30pm. This West Seattle performance is a unique opportunity to shed a light on some of the neighborhood’s history. Audience members will have the opportunity to learn about the West Seattle community’s specific responses to the rise of anti-Japanese American rhetoric prevalent in the United States during the war.

Generously funded by 4Culture Arts and Heritage and Kip Tokuda Memorial Washington Civil Liberties Public Education Program grants, this production is offered free-of-charge to community organizations.

About the Playwright and Director
Laura Ferri is an award winning, professional theatre artist renowned for her attention to period detail and her skill in creating performances from primary source documents. She is a founding member of Book-It Repertory Theatre, and she has twice received the Seattle Times Footlight Best Production award; once in 2012 for her direction of Prairie Nocturne, and again in 2016 for her production of A Tale for The Time Being. In 2022, she received a US/UK Fulbright award in Creative Writing to develop a play about WWII in Northern Ireland. Her most recent work includes The Ruins of Memory: Women’s Voices of the Holocaust.

About the Cast and Production Team
Emma Chang, Caylin Morrison, Celia Nimura-Parmenter, Olivia Ockey, Justin Jay Smith, Isaac Tian, Laurence Wulfe Production Stage Manager: Mackenzie Breda Japanese Cultural Consultant/ Assistant Director: Lada Vishtak Costume Designer: Carrie Rees Johnson Sound Designer/Composer: Max Sarkowsky Producer: Tamara Bunnell INTERVIEWS Interviews with playwright and director Laura Ferri are available upon request. Please contact The Seattle Historical Theatre Project for more information.

Click here for updates and tour details.