Philip Gotanda

Research Expertise and Interest

theater, Playwriting, Indie Film, New Music Opera, Asian American, Japanese American

Research Description

Playwright Philip Kan Gotanda has been a major influence in the broadening of our definition of theater in America.  Through his plays and advocacy, Mr. Gotanda has been instrumental in bringing stories of Asians in the United States to mainstream American theater as well as to Europe and Asia. The author of one of the largest canon of Asian American themed work, Mr. Gotanda is a seminal figure in the field of Asian American Drama. Mr. Gotanda’s plays are studied and performed extensively at universities, colleges and learning institutions in the United States and abroad.

In the News

Six New Fellows of American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The new UC Berkeley fellows are medical anthropologist Charles Briggs, philosopher John Campbell, neuroscientist Marla Feller, playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, physicist Dung-Hai Lee and political scientist Amy Lerman.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
September 18, 2018

Acclaimed Berkeley playwright Philip Kan Gotanda opens up about his mysterious new play

San Jose Mercury News
Sam Hurwitt
Playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, a Berkeley theater, dance, and performance studies professor, has a new play debuting at the Ubuntu Theater Project. According to this critic, the play -- "Pool of Unknown Wonders: Undertow of the Soul" -- is a "fractured narrative in which five travelers adrift in time take a strange, dreamlike trip guided by a mysterious navigator. Though they travel as a group, each person's journey is deeply personal and steeped in haunting traumas and ugly buried truths." Professor Gotanda says: "The play I think is about -- and I say 'I think' because the ending isn't even absolute yet -- a group of individuals who are on a journey in an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. ... They all have individual stories, and they're heading for this place called the Pool that's located within an area called the Zone." This is the second play Professor Gotanda has written for Ubuntu. The first was an adaptation of "Rashomon." For more on this, visit the Ubuntu Theater Project.
FullStory (*requires registration)


Loading Class list ...