Hold These Truths

Jomar Tagatac in Hold These Truths

Hold These Truths by Jeanne Sakata

In-person + Video on demand

June 8 – July 3, 2021

Tickets: $15 – $100

Closed July 3, 2021
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Call 415.677.9596 to buy tickets by phone.

Approx. run time: 90 minutes; no intermission

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Hold These Truths

By Jeanne Sakata

Directed by Jeffrey Lo

Starring Jomar Tagatac

“Bay Area theater is back in a big way.” – East Bay Times

“We all need to see this stirring show!” – Theatrius

“The ever-brilliant Tagatac performs to his usual high standard.” – Talkin’ Broadway

PLAY DETAILS

Hold These Truths is based on the incredible true story of one of America’s unsung heroes. In February 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the relocation and incarceration of tens of thousands of innocent American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Among these citizens was Gordon Hirabayashi, whose defiance of the internment order catapulted him into a 50-year journey of conscience to protect the Constitution from a country that viewed him as the enemy. Hold These Truths was inspired by many hours of interviews conducted by playwright Jeanne Sakata with Mr. Hirabayashi as well as numerous primary sources from his life.

THE CREATIVE TEAM

IF YOU ARE MOVED BY WHAT YOU SEE ON STAGE
To see how you can help protect the constitutional rights of American citizens and residents, click here for a list of resources.

ABOUT IN-PERSON PERFORMANCES

Hold These Truths is the first production that San Francisco Playhouse will present for in-person audiences since the Coronavirus pandemic began. We are hard at work expanding our health and safety protocols to welcome audiences back inside on June 8th, 2021. Masks and social distancing will be required at all performances of Hold These Truths, and our box office staff is developing mechanisms by which audience members will be seated apart from one another. Please find a detailed overview of our COVID Safety Protocols here.

PHOTOS

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Jeanne Sakata’s celebrated solo play Hold These Truths (2013 Drama Desk Nomination, Outstanding Solo Performance; 2019 Theatre Bay Awards, Outstanding Production, Principal Performance and Direction) won accolades in 2019 at San Diego Rep and Barrington Stage (encore run by audience demand) after extended 2018 runs at Arena Stage and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and sold-out shows with the Guthrie Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Portland Center Stage, ACT Seattle, and PlayMakers Rep.  Hold These Truths was recently aired on TV in Philadelphia’s local PBS station, WHYY TV, in a filmed performance produced by People’s Light and Theatre., and is available internationally as a radio play, produced by L.A. Theatre Works.  The play, winning rave reviews from The New Yorker, New York Times, and other AP critics, has also been produced in recent years at Perseverance Theatre, Honolulu Theatre for Youth (Daniel Dae Kim, co-producer), Terra Nova Collective, Silk Road Rising, Coachella Valley Rep, Plays and Players, and New Century Theatre. Premiering with the East West Players in Los Angeles, and then Off-Broadway with the Epic Theatre Ensemble, the play was workshopped by the Lark Play Development Center and the New York Theatre Workshop, and is inspired by the true story of Japanese American civil rights giant Gordon Hirabayashi, to whom President Obama posthumously awarded in 2012 a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Hold These Truths, now published by Ageloff Books and available on Amazon, is also on display at the Library of Congress Playwrights Archive in the Asian American Pacific Islander Collection in Washington DC, where the Jeanne Sakata Collection was established in July 2011.  Jeanne’s latest work, FOR US ALL, a radio play commissioned by LA Theatre Works and inspired by the 1980’s coram nobis legal battle of Fred Korematsu, will be broadcast on radio in 2021.

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