NAAP

On November 14, 2011, we hosted GETTING TO KNOW NAAP, an event to share our goals and endeavors with our friends, old and new. The evening showcased samplings of NAAP’s previous works in New York on professional stages as well as in the schools. Following the presentation was food, drink, and camaraderie, as well as the chance for NAAP to listen and learn what our supporters had to say about their own visions toward our mutual mission. All photos by Eric Bondoc.

Through NAAP's outreach program, children from PS 124 in New York's Chinatown had the great opportunity to perform at the Junior Theatre Festival at the Cobb Convention Center in Atlanta, Georgia. For most of them, this was their first trip on an airplane, their first time in a hotel, and their first time in a convention center. They performed a number from "Guys and Dolls" in front of an audience of 2200 people to a standing ovation. After the event was over, they sang all the way home on the plane back to New York. All photos by Billy B Photography

NAAP, in partnership with ITheatrics, Inc., began a 2-year pilot program to bring theatre to PS 124 in New York City's Chinatown. This group of talented 3rd and 4th graders were selected to perform a musical theatre routine to present in January 2011 at the Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta. On January 12, 2011, they performed for their schoolmates before boarding the plane the next day to Georgia. Here's their school presentation of "Guys and Dolls," from the musical GUYS AND DOLLS.

PROGRAM EXCERPT: Welcome to National Asian Artists Project’s inaugural staged reading of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s first musical collaboration OKLAHOMA! This is the first event in our “Rediscover Series” in which we will explore classic works with Asian artists, thus giving them a new face. We begin with OKLAHOMA! because it is the most American of musicals and its theme of a new frontier speaks to NAAP’s mission as well; forging inexorably ahead into artistic territory with new ideas and commitment.

For the educational component of The King and I concert performance, Leslie Denniston and Steven Eng held a workshop class with the 600+ student body of Greensboro Elementary in Greensboro, Georgia on October 19, 2009.

On October 17th and 18th, 2009, NAAP co-produced a semi-staged fully professional concert production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic, The King and I, in Eatonton, Georgia. In collaboration with Oconee Performing Arts Society, 9 professional actors were brought from New York (including 8 of Asian descent) to perform with local professionals and the Atlanta Pops Orchestra. Baayork directed and Kevin Farrell conducted.

On October 5, 2009, National Asian Artists Project, Inc., officially launched with a soiree that included numerous well-established New York theatre artists and patrons as well as New York City community leaders.

For two summers, Baayork, Steven and Nina Zoie ran a musical theater school in New York City’s Chinatown for local kids. This gathering was a reunion of some of those students, some of who are pursuing the theatre in their own schools.