Mieko Ouchi is an actor, filmmaker, musician and playwright. This native of Edmonton, Alberta is described as half-Celtic, half- Japanese, and all Canadian. Her documentary film Shepherd’s Pie & Sushi explores her paternal ancestry as she examines her grandfather Edward Ouchi’s experiences as a Japanese immigrant to Canada. Ouchi is a founding co-director of Concrete Theatre and a recipient (2003) of the Queen’s Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the arts community of Alberta. Ouchi currently works as Associate Artistic Director at the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton, Alberta.
Drama
Burning Mom
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2023.
e-book (Access restricted to members of the university community)
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
A retired suburban wife and mother tragically loses her partner after forty-five years together. So what does she do? The only thing that makes any sense at all. She embarks on her own hero’s journey. A road trip to the middle of the Nevada desert in a twenty-six-foot-long RV.
Based on the experiences of playwright Mieko Ouchi’s mother, Dorothy Ouchi, this irreverent one-woman play tosses us into the passenger seat and takes us on a voyage through the process of grief and the search for meaning and onto the madcap playa of the world’s largest free-form creative gathering as Dorothy discovers the power of art, community, Walmart, and MOOP and the courage to jump back into the deep end of life.
Drama
I Am For You
Toronto, Ont.: Playwrights Canada Press, 2016.
PS8579 .U26 I12 2016
Publisher’s Synopis
Lainie and Mariam have it out for each other, so it’s no surprise when they finally come to violent blows in the middle of their high school’s drama room. That’s when Caddell Morris, an ex-professional actor and newly minted student teacher, steps in. By teaching the girls the art of stage combat, he hopes to help them understand more about the roots and costs of violence. But when he convinces the drama teacher to let them play Mercutio and Tybalt in their school production of Romeo and Juliet, swords, words, and egos battle and clash. Can Lainie and Mariam find a way to work together?
Drama
Mieko Ouchi: Two Plays: The Blue Light and The Red Priest (Eight Ways to Say Goodbye)
Toronto, Ont.: Playwrights Canada Press, 2007.
PS8579 .U26 M54 2007
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
The Blue Light
Leni Riefenstahl, 100 years old, is in the office of a young female Hollywood studio executive. Leni’s reason to be there is clear, to make one last desperate pitch to direct her first feature film in fifty years. The young woman willing to meet her? Much harder to say… A thought provoking contemplation on art, politics and the seduction of fascism, and a theatrical examination of a woman who danced one perfect dance with the devil and changed the way films are made forever.
The Red Priest
Trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage, a young un-named woman is forced by her husband, a rich courtier of Louis XV, to take violin lessons from the aging and desperate Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, and within six weeks play a concerto for the court in Paris in 1741. All for a bet. The delicate, complex and combative journey they embark on will not only decide their futures, but also change them both in ways they never imagined. A story about the healing power of music and the journey to become an artist.
Awards and Honours
2008 “The Blue Light” Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama-Alberta Literary Awards (Writers’ Guild of Alberta)(Finalist)
Drama
Nisei Blue
Toronto, Ont.: Playwrights Canada Press, 2012.
THIS PUBLICATION MAY HAVE BEEN CANCELLED
Publisher’s Synopis (From its website)
A retiring detective is haunted by visions from his past: a glittering nightclub in 1939, a beautiful Japanese Canadian jazz singer and a rookie case that never got solved. Forty-five years later, he returns to the scene of the crime to uncover the truth. But can he put the pieces of the puzzle together before they fade away?
Awards and Honours
2012 Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama-Alberta Literary Awards (Writers’ Guild of Alberta)(Finalist)
Drama
The Red Priest: Eight Ways to Say Goodbye
Toronto, Ont.: Playwrights Canada Press, 2003.
PS8579 .U26 R53 2004
Awards and Honours
2004 Governor General’s Literary Award–Drama, English (Nominated)
2004 Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama-Alberta Literary Awards (Writers’ Guild of Alberta)(Finalist)
2005 Carol Bolt Award for Drama–Canadian Authors Association (Winner)
Anthology (Drama)
Sprouts!
Ouchi, Mieko. “The Tofu Wars.” In
Sprouts! An Anthology of Plays From Concrete Theatre’s Sprouts New Play Festival for Kids, eds. Mieko Ouchi and Caroline Howarth. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2010, [305]-325.
Links
Publisher Playwrights Canada Press
List of films from the Film and Video Arts (FAVA) Society of Alberta website
Profile from Asian Heritage Month in Edmonton website
Concrete Theatre website