WILLIAM Finn’s “False ttoland” – rife with bar mitzvah anxiety, catering concerns and baseball inadequacy – seems the quintessential Jewish musical.
So why not recast it with . . . Asian-Americans?
Judge for yourself at the first National Asian American Theater Festival, where a retooled “Falsettoland” is just one of dozens of productions by artists of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Filipino, Sri Lankan and Vietnamese extraction.
The fest kicks off today with excerpts from plays by David Henry Hwang, Julia Cho, Diana Son and others, and continues through June 24.
The idea started four years ago, at a national convention of theaters of color – Latino, black and Asian, says Mia Katigbak, one of the festival’s founders.
“The more we talked to each other, the more we realized that we had to make our presence known, just as the African-American companies had,” she says.
It’s her company, the National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) that’s performing “Falsettoland.” But it won’t be the first time.
She says actor-turned-director Alan Muraoko fell in love with the 1991 musical, mostly for its strong affirmation about family – gay and straight, Jewish and gentile. He mounted the show for the troupe’s 1998 fund-raiser.
“[Composer] Bill Finn was a little skeptical at first, but he agreed and came to the benefit,” Katigbak recalls.
“The interesting thing was, it wasn’t such a leap. One of my designers said, ‘It’s like when Americans play Chekhov – they’re not Russian. They have to do research, too.’ ”
Other productions include “Living Dead in Denmark” (a kind of martial-arts take on “Hamlet”); “Three Filipino Tenors” and “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a one-woman show about neuroses, by the Los Angeles-based Kristina Wong.
For a full schedule, visit NAATF.org. Tickets, $18 to $20, are available through Theater-mania.com or (212) 352-3101.