Alvin CG Chan

Director

Written by Lee Cataluna for the Honolulu Theatre For Youth in 2016, "Mud Pies & Magic" is an intergenerational piece that showcases the complex relationships between children and elder family members. 

Split into two one acts, the first half of the play centered around a young girl Kylee and her great grandmother GG. While the second half of the show focused on Uncle Tommy, a grumpy couch potato, and his hyper active video game playing nephew Dillan.

The challenge directory was to create a unified world out of two very different technical pieces. The first act, although magical, has a tone rooted in an older time, and so I wanted to use as many "real" elements as possible. Real mud, running water, real shrubbery. Even the stage magic needed to be mostly old fashioned.

The challenge of the second act, "Magic", was that the playwright left three large sections to be created by the director. In the piece, the characters go through three very different virtual reality video game worlds, and build a bond by completing each level. 

My inspirations for the video games came from "Space Invaders", "Super Mario Brothers", and "Pac Man".  

World premier Production. 

Set Design: Joe Dodd

Costume Design: Lacey Rohlf 

Sound Design: Eric Burlingame 

Lighting Design: Dyan Burlingame 

Projection Design: Chesley Cannon 

Actor / Playwright

Produced by the Honolulu Theatre For Youth in 2013 and remounted in 2019, "A Korean Cinderella" is adapted from the story "Kongji & Patji", about a girl with an evil step mother and step sister who try to prevent her from attending a ball that the mayor is throwing by making her do impossible chores.

For this production I knew I wanted to go in the direction of Korean Pop as an overall aesthetic. So it made perfect sense that instead of fairy god-mothers, Kongji had a triad of fairy K-pop boys at her side.

Photo Credit: Brad Goda

Director: Eric Johnson

Music Director/Sound Design: Max Louie

Set Design: David Gerke

Lighting Design: Chesley Cannon

Costume Design: Sandra Payne

Choreography: Johnathan Sypert & Mary-Jo Freshly

Audio Tracks

Actor / Playwright / Movement Choreographer / Style Coach

First produced by the Honolulu Theatre For Youth in 2011, then remounted in 2016, "Anime Momotaro" also was produced by Imagination Stage in 2013 where it won the Helen Hayes Award for best TYA production. The script has also been translated into Japanese and performed by the HTY acting company. 

Incorporating traditional Japanese theatre techniques from Kyogen, Bunraku, and Kabuki, the show melded these techniques with modern Anime (Cartoons) style in its colorful costumes, whacky sound effects, and unconventional staging. 

As the style coach, it was my job to find a way to meld the the cartoon style of Anime into a live theatre form. That was when we came up with the "emoji" idea (before they were popular on phones). Ninja like puppeteers called Koken could enhance the emotions of characters on stage by producing 2-D tear drops, hearts, or stars next to them. 

HTY Production

Director: Eric Johnson

Set & Lighting Design: Bart McGeehon

Costume Design: Sandra Payne

Sound Design: Barrett Hoover

IS Production

Set Design: Natsu Onoda

Costume Design: Deb Sivigny

Lighting Design: Zachary Gilbert

Sound Design: Chris Baine

Director / Playwright / Costume Designer / Movement & Fight Choreographer / Actor

Commissioned by the Honolulu Theatre For Youth in 2017, and then extended and remounted by Imagination Stage in 2019, and most recently by Northwestern University in 2022.

This adaptation was done in the style of Jingju (Beijing Opera), a traditional Chinese theatre form that incorporates acting, song, music, percussion, dance, martial arts, and acrobatics.

With little more than a carpet, a table, and two chairs, the actors are at the forefront of the story telling while being closely accompanied by a percussionist. Projections were incorporated to help clarify setting and move transitions.

For the IS production, the script and songs were extended and the cast size increased from 4 to 8.

Most recently, the Northwestern production featured an all female, Asian American cast (the first in the history of the University).

“Dao Of Now” music video by Chesley Cannon.

Original production photos by Brad Goda.

Imagination Stage production photos by Margot Schulman.

HTY Production Team:

Director: Eric Johnson

Music Director/Sound Design: Matthew Mazzella

Set Designer: Joe Dodd

Lighting & Projection Design: Chesley Cannon

IS Production Team:

Lighting Design: Zach Gilbert

Northwestern Production Team:

Music Director: Kevin Park

Sound Designer: Lacie Yao

Set Designer: TianXuan Chen

Lighting Designer: Zoe Jang

Costume Designer: Meeka Postman

Audio Tracks

Costume Designs

Director / Playwright / Costume Design

"Filipino Folktales & Fables" marked my last production as a full-time artistic associate of HTY. The play consisted of multiple folktales and fables pulled from olden day Filipino stories that originated from the many islands located in the Philippines; juxtaposed with folk dance and songs.

After much research into the history of the Philippines, I wanted to present a piece to local audiences in Hawaii that could shed light on the stories that existed before outside colonial influence. This led to the incorporation of many “just so stories” that I found to be unique and refreshing. I then incorporated folk dances into certain stories to further illuminate cultural artistry and enhance storytelling.

A colorful feast for the senses; the episodic structure of this play allowed us to cover a wider range of stories from a diverse community that stretches across over 7,000 islands.

Set Design: Eric West

Projection Design: Chesley Canon

Lighting Design: Brian Gilhooly

Photo Credits: Brad Goda & Chesley Canon

Head Writer / Lyricist / Devisor

A company devised piece with the Honolulu Theatre For Youth.Part rock concert, part circus, part science, and part theatre.  "H2O" centered around past and present water issues in Hawaii. Partners on the project included the Hawaii State Dept. of Health, the Board of Water Supply, Kokua Hawaii Foundation, & the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Director: Eric Johnson

Set Design: Jennifer Eccles

Costume Design: Cheryl Flaharty

Sound Design: Paul James Prendergast

Audio Tracks

Actor / Playwright / Movement Choreographer / Style Coach

Produced by HTY in 2015, "Anime Alice" marked our second foray into the world of Anime inspired theatre that we first created with "Anime Momotaro", but this time we were telling a western story as opposed to a Japanese one. 

While writing the script, I kept going back to themes of moving to a new place where things seem foreign, or starting at a new school...so many firsts that children go through and how scary yet exhilarating that can be. So I decided that in this adaptation, Alice's family is about to uproot to Japan, and although she's never been there, she's got quite a wild imagination of what the land of the rising sun could hold. 

We pulled immensely from Japanese Bunraku puppetry for this production and it showed particularly in the design. With characters that need to grow bigger and smaller, and be able to disappear and reappear. The Cheshire Cat was created using multiple fans of different sizes manipulated by three stage hands dressed completely in black as to be "invisible". 

Director: Eric Johnson

Set Design: Tom Lee

Costume Design: Lacey Rolf

Sound Design: Barett Hoover & Patrick Oiye

Lighting Design: Chesley Cannon

Actor / Playwright / Costume Designer / Movement Choreographer

Produced in 2012 for HTY, "The Five Chinese Brothers" was my first attempt at bringing Jingju (Beijing Opera) fusion into modern theatre. For this piece we also relied heavily on improv, as we brought up children from the audience each show to play the other four brothers. 

Director: Eric Johnson

Set & Lighting Design: Bart McGeehon

Sound Design: Kala`i Stern

Actor / Playwright

Commissioned by the Honolulu Theatre for Youth in 2012, "The Lion Dancer" centers around the immigrant experience growing up in Hawaii, and how a boy must learn to navigate his Chinese heritage alongside local and pop culture. 

Director: Reiko Ho

Set & Lighting Design: Bart McGeehon

Costume Design: Sandra Payne