COMING FULL CIRCLE: Rick Shiomi's Fondest Recollections

In 2013, as my days as the Artistic Director at Theater Mu were coming to an end, I began to think about my artistic future with Martha B. Johnson, my spouse and artistic partner for over twenty years. In the twenty years I’d been the Artistic Director at Mu, I felt like we had laid the foundation and seen the blossoming of a wonderful company. We had accomplished great productions of works like Flower Drum Song (the David Henry Hwang version), The Mikado (my own re-imagining in collaboration with Skylark Opera), the Sondheim musicals Into The Woods (set in the world of Asian folktales) and Pacific Overtures (in collaboration with Park Square Theatre),  Cowboy Versus Samurai by Michael Golamco, Ching Chong Chinaman and Tiger Tales by Lauren Yee, and even A Midsummer Night’s Dream set in Asia. I felt we had created a company that was ready for a new phase of development and I was ready to move on with other plans for Martha and myself. (And indeed, over the past ten years Theater Mu has grown larger, become more established, and has become nationally recognized, initially under Randy Reyes, and especially over the past five years under Lily Tung Crystal, during which time it has been recognized as a regional cultural treasure.)

Martha and I initially hoped to start a new company using the past legal standing of the company she used to lead called 21st Street Players. We recruited Greg Anderson to be our board chair. That idea didn’t work out and Martha and I almost gave up the project, but Greg encouraged us to create a new company which we came to call Full Circle Theater. It would be focused both on the idea that “We are all in this together,” and the work of developing new voices and artists from marginalized communities. We decided to operate on a co-leadership system as Co-Artistic Directors, along with a Core Artist Leadership Group that had three members (Stephanie Lein Walseth, Lara Trujillo and James A. Williams). At the same time, Greg recruited two of his friends, Ross Peterson and Mike Katz, to serve on the board and they became key leaders/officers for the company. And we brought in Quinci Bachman as an administrative intern who would over the years become our Managing Director.

In the spirit of being all in this together, our first production in 2015 was titled Theater: A Sacred Passage and was based upon the stories of the five Core Artists (Martha, Stephanie, Lara, James and myself), our racial and cultural identities, and how we had all come into the world of theater. The second production in 2016 was a selection of 45 short plays from 365 Days/365 Plays by Suzan-Lori Parks. Martha had produced a similar version at Augsburg University where she had taught, and we thought it was a brilliant vision of America encapsulated in these short plays. And it provided us with the opportunity to have several directors for the various plays. It turned out to be a wild ride with so many directors and cast members but the production was amazing. 

My own personal artistic highlight was our production of Caught by Christopher Chen in 2018. I had directed the world premiere of the play at InterAct Theatre in Philadelphia in 2014 while on a Doris Duke “Building Demand For The Arts” project grant. I simply loved the play because it examined race and identity in an ever so sly and surprising way. And the idea of having the set be a visual exhibition that the audience could meander through before the play was brilliant. Set in the Dowling Studio at the Guthrie, I felt this production was my own artistic peak as a director.

In an even broader scope, Martha and I had contacts in Japan who were interested in her play, Dipped in Love “Ai Ni Tsutsumarete,” and we were able to arrange a collaboration of Full Circle and Theater KinderSpace  in Tokyo in 2019. The play had been originally produced by Theater Mu, but with the play about the friendships of three women, one of which was Japanese, KinderSpace was interested in doing it in translation (by Momoko Tanno). We attended the wonderful production in Tokyo and truly enjoyed the friendships and sense of community in the world of small theater there. Yoshi Yoshihara, who has been my long time theater associate and the translator for my plays, said that Martha’s play was like no other in Japan in the way it addressed the issues and lives of women. It was yet another extraordinary artistic adventure made possible by our company.

And in 2019 we also produced a duo of plays as part of the MN Fringe Festival, called Glass & Lady M. directed by Martha. Glass was written by Lindsey Bushnell and focused on four women trapped in a glass house.  Lady M. was Martha’s own interpretation of the Lady Macbeth sleepwalking scene. This production really reflected the movement and imagination of Martha as a director.

Over the past several years we’ve had many productions of works that focused on key issues or stories from and for our communities. In our presentations on Sharing Stories on Issues of Disability and Theater we have been bringing the stories of artists with disabilities to the forefront.  With The Empathy Project, a project developed by Stephanie Lein Walseth, we explored the wide range of social and political stories in our communities and ways to look at and overcome the polarization that separates us. With Atacama by Augusto Federico Amador and co-directed by Lara Trujillo and myself, we brought to light the tragedy of the Pinochet regime in Chile and the dangers of dictatorship. With Anon(ymous) by Naomi Iizuka and directed by Stephanie we looked at refugee stories through the journey of a young man seeking to find his mother. With my play Fire In The New World, we looked at a minority community defending itself from corporate developers through the detective mystery genre. With Antigonick by Anne Carson and directed by Martha, we took a contemporary approach to the classic Greek story about an individual standing up for decency in the face of an authoritarian figure. And most recently we produced They Wear Teal Ribbons Around Their Tongues by Siddeeqah Shabazz, which brought the issue of sexual assault within a Black family to light. Looking at the tapestry of our work over the past decade, I feel like we have accomplished a broad range of plays and presentations that truly embodies those original ideas of all being in this together and bringing voices and artists from marginalized and underserved communities to the stage.

Over all these years I am so thankful for the support and organizational leadership of our board of directors under the initial leadership of Greg Anderson, later Mike Katz, and now Christina Ogata. And thanks to all of our board members, from early members like Ross Peterson who was our treasurer for many years, to others like Gordon Nakagawa, Martha J. Johnson, Brian Joyce and Florence Amamoto. We have been blessed by their support and oversight in making Full Circle such a wonderful company.

And so, though I am stepping down from my staff position as Co-Artistic Director, I will remain active as a member of the Core Artist Leadership Group. I look forward not only to continuing as an integral part of the company, but also supporting the new leader who replaces me and who will work alongside Stephanie, Quinci, the Core Artist Leadership Group, and the Board. Together, we are excited to move into our 2024-2025 season with our fall mainstage production, Adventures of a Traveling Meskwaki by Oogie_Push, and a virtual presentation on Issues of Disability and Theater in early 2025. Leadership transitions are often viewed as times of uncertainty, but this moment is also a wonderful opportunity for renewed vision and energy which will carry the foundational work of the first decade into a bright and promising new future.