ABSTRACT
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States claimed ownership over island nations such as the Philippines and Hawai’i, broadening its reach over tropical lands and people as part of its imagined national identity. Chapter Three looks at how U.S. imperial presence in the Philippines and Hawai’i inspired popular works of American musical theatre such as George Ade’s The Sultan of Sulu (1902) and Richard Walton Tully’s The Bird of Paradise (1907) that influenced lasting impressions of the Philippines and Hawai’i. The chapter then turns to contemporary theater works by and about the people of U.S. territorial occupation, surveying Asian American theaters such as East West Players, New WORLD Theater, Pangea World Theater, Silk Road Theater, and networks such as MENATMA (Middle Eastern and North African Theatre Makers) and the SWANA (Southwest Asian North American) theater organizations. These collaborations, as well as the theatrical adaptation of Jessica Hagedorn’s novel Dogeaters and Robert Farid Karimi’s performances of Self (the Remix), challenge colonialist and imperialist narratives and serve as reminders that Asian American theater does not exist solely with the contiguous United States.
