The importance of inclusivity

A message from Dmae Lo Roberts, Director of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

I first saw a live performance when I was five years old in Taiwan where I was born. My family took me to a Taiwanese street opera. I remember the vibrant magical costumes and the clash of instruments and voices. But most of all I loved the movement of the trained performers. Sometimes acrobatic with swords or lances; other instances, graceful royal steps gliding across the stage. After we moved to the States, it would be many decades before I would see all-Asians on stage together.

The cast, crew, and creative team of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.

This first exposure gravitated me to become a theater artist. But creating theater in Oregon was often a lonely and difficult experience as an actor when you were usually the only person of color in the production. Through the years I’ve tried to create more opportunities for BIPOC actors and through co-founding Theatre Diaspora with Samson Syharath, I believe we started a movement to represent more Asian Americans on Portland stages as well as more BIPOC audience members. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a milestone for me in Portland since I first moved here in 1989. I believe this production is the first all-Asian American local cast in a musical here.

With Minh Tran’s opera movement and Willow Zheng’s visual art, I also endeavor to bring cultural authenticity to this musical by Min Kahng based on a beloved book by Grace Lin. And you may recognize parts of Portland’s Chinatown gate and Lan Su Garden through John Kashiwabara’s detailed scenic design.

OCT and MediaRites also created partnerships with Lan Su, Portland Chinatown Museum and Northwest China Council. It was important to highlight and connect with Portland Chinese American community especially now after the pandemic and the anti-AAPI racism it brought with it.

But most of all, I hope young people will enjoy this story of a young girl on a heroic quest just as I did at age five in Taiwan watching the street opera.

Dmae Lo Roberts is a two-time Peabody award-winning Taiwanese-American writer, director, theatre and media artist. Locally she has won two Drammy awards and the Oregon Book Award. Her plays have been produced at IFCC, Artists Rep, Portland Repertory Theatre, Northwest Asian American Theatre in Seattle and East/West Players in LA. Her recent short films have won over a dozen film festivals world-wide. With Samson Syharath, she co-founded Theatre Diaspora, Oregon’s first and only AAPI theatre, as a project of MediaRites, a nonprofit multicultural production organization, where she is the executive producer. Roberts previously directed The Journal of Ben Uchida at OCT.

She also is also the creator and host of the Stage and Studio podcast, discussing performing, media and literary arts in the Northwest. Through the last 23 years, she has interviewed more than 1,000 people on Stage & Studio. As a writer, media and theatre artist, she brings her multi-disciplinary expertise and experience into the studio to ask in-depth questions about the artistic process and more personal inquiry into the artists she interviews. Her most recent interview features a conversation with Grace Lin, author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, about creating tales for kids who don't see themselves in most books.