Pan Asian Repertory Theatre

The Pan Asian Repertory Theatre is a New York City-based theatre group that explores the Asian-American experience and provides professional opportunities for Asian-American artists to collaborate. Pan-Asian was founded by Tisa Chang and Ernest Abuba in 1977, and Chang remains artistic director. Chang established the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre as a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1977, with the intention of popularizing Asian-American theater and leading to other similar theatre companies in cities with an Asian disaporic population.

Specializing in intercultural productions of new Asian-American plays, Asian classics in translation, and innovative adaptations of Western classics, some of the works Pan Asian has presented included:


 * Empress of China - featuring Tina Chen in the title role of China's last dowager ruler
 * Yellow Fever - continued to an Off-Broadway run
 * Ghashiram Kotwal - Marathi play with music
 * Teahouse - by Lao She, spanning fifty years of modern Chinese history
 * Cambodia Agonistes - by Ernest Abuba, music by Louis Stewart
 * The Teahouse of the August Moon - by John Patrick
 * Forbidden City Blues - by Alexander Woo
 * The Fan Tan King - by C. Y. Leethe, world premiere
 * Yohen - by Philip Kan Gotanda
 * Tea - by Velina Hasu Houston, 20th anniversary production
 * Ching Chong Chinaman at the Westside Theatre

Pan Asian has staged early works of writers including Momoko Iko, Wakako Yamauchi, Philip Kan Gotanda, R. A. Shiomi, and David Henry Hwang. When they established a residency program in 1987, Pan Asian became the United States' first resident Asian American theater company continuing with Chang's goal to showcase Asian American theater as having a role in the city's theater scene.