R.A. Shiomi

R.A. (Richard Alan) Shiomi is a third-generation Japanese-Canadian who’s plays have been performed in Canada, the U.S.A. and in translation in Japan. He has also written for television, co-authored two librettos, directed, and even designed sets early in his career. Shiomi was born in Toronto, earned a B.A. at the University of Toronto in 1970 and a teaching certificate from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. He was involved with the Powell Street Festival in Vancouver from its inception 1977 and went on to become a prominent member of the Asian American theatre movement. Rick Shiomi continues to be based in Minnesota where he has contributed to many theatrical ventures, most recently (November 2017) as co-artistic director of the Full Circle Theater Company in St. Paul, MN. Toronto Metropolitan University Library has access to fourteen of the plays that Shiomi wrote or co-wrote via Alexander Street Press’s Asian American Drama Collection. His play Yellow Fever was first published by Playwrights Canada Press in 1984, making it perhaps the earliest Asian-Canadian play.

Anthology (Drama)

“Yellow Fever.” In Love + Relasianships: A Collection of Contemporary Asian-Canadian Drama. Volume 1, ed. Nina Lee Aquino. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2009, 1-53.

PS8309 .A75 L68 2009
Also available to TMU community members in electronic format via Alexander Street Press’s Asian American Drama Collection.

Criticism and Interpretation

Lee, Josephine D. “R.A. Shiomi.” In Asian American Playwrights: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, ed. Miles Xian Liu. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Press, 2002, 315-320.