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George Takei Takes Story Of Internment To The Stage
NPR Weekend Edition Saturday
September 1, 2012
Today, George Takei is best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek series and, more recently, his hugely popular Facebook and Twitter feeds.
But his latest project aims to bring a different kind of story to the stage, one with personal and historical resonance. The actor was born in Los Angeles to a Japanese-American family just a few years before Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor. After that 1941 attack, he and his family were among the tens of thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent who were forced to move to internment camps.
Now, Takei's childhood experience living in camps in Arkansas and California has inspired a new musical called Allegiance. Previews of the show are set to begin Sept. 7 at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.
Takei plays two characters in the show: Ojii-San, the grandfather of a family in an internment camp, and Sam Kimura, a 77-year-old former internee whose story is told from the present day. Takei joined NPR's Scott Simon to discuss his experience of internment and the importance of remembering the darker chapters of American history.
http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/wesat/2012/09/20120901_wesat_09.mp3
(10 min 8 sec)
Today, George Takei is best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek series and, more recently, his hugely popular Facebook and Twitter feeds.
But his latest project aims to bring a different kind of story to the stage, one with personal and historical resonance. The actor was born in Los Angeles to a Japanese-American family just a few years before Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor. After that 1941 attack, he and his family were among the tens of thousands of U.S. citizens of Japanese descent who were forced to move to internment camps.
Now, Takei's childhood experience living in camps in Arkansas and California has inspired a new musical called Allegiance. Previews of the show are set to begin Sept. 7 at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.
Takei plays two characters in the show: Ojii-San, the grandfather of a family in an internment camp, and Sam Kimura, a 77-year-old former internee whose story is told from the present day. Takei joined NPR's Scott Simon to discuss his experience of internment and the importance of remembering the darker chapters of American history.
http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/wesat/2012/09/20120901_wesat_09.mp3
(10 min 8 sec)