Theater

ConFest 2024 celebrates Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in theater. It's been around for nearly a decade and a half. Among the events is a reading of the play “Fighting Like Mad.”

Longtime local theater stalwart Dwight Martin is making his return to Mānoa Valley Theatre this month. Martin was the theater's producing director from 1980 to 2019, but he's back as an actor this time. The Conversation sat down with Martin to talk about taking on an iconic role and what he's been up to in retirement.

ConFest will return to Hawaiʻi's art scene after a four-year pause. The five-day event is officially called the National Asian American Theater Conference and will offer live performances and workshops.

To mark the occasion, students are performing "The Maiden Benten and the Bandits of the White Waves," a popular Kabuki production that centers on a band of five thieves based on real criminals from Japan's Edo period.

"(re)Imagining Homelands" will be held at Leeward Theatre at Leeward Community College on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are available for live streaming and in-person attendance.

Susan Naylor Moulton made the donation so that others could experience the healing from the arts community that she received during hard times.

Mānoa Valley Theatre's "Dear Evan Hansen" production will premiere tonight. It's the first time the play will be performed by any theater in the nation outside of the Broadway shows and national tour.

The latest effort to provide more evening family entertainment in Waikīkī involves two longtime companies: a Canada-based entertainment juggernaut and a Hawaiʻi-based hotel chain. An upcoming Cirque du Soleil residency will take over the 20,000-square-foot theater at the Outrigger Waikīkī Beachcomber. The Conversation's Catherine Cruz has more.

A new theater production in Honolulu is designed for children who experience the world differently because of learning or physical disorders. The Conversation's Lillian Tsang spoke with Danica Rosengren from the Hawaiʻi State Foundation on Culture and the Arts about making art accessible for all.

A new play at Kumu Kahua Theatre in Honolulu, "Aitu Fafine," focuses on the life of acclaimed writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his family in Vailima, Samoa.