CHRISTINe TOY JOHNSON is an award-winning playwright, actor, and filmmaker. Her first play, the NeW DeaL, was the inaugural play to be developed in the "Different Voices" program at the Roundabout Theatre Company in NYC (2006) and was part of Wesleyan University's 2011 Playwriting Curriculum. Its prequel, PaPeR SON, was in Diverse City Theatre Company's 2008 Green Room Reading Series and the Queens Theatre in the Park's 2009 Asian Heritage Festival, and is an ongoing part of the University of Michigan's Multi-cultural Drama curriculum as well as Wesleyan University's 2009 Playwriting curriculum. Other plays: INTeRNaL BLeeDING (Crossroads Theatre Company 2010 "Genesis Festival", ReImagined World entertainment's 2011 NYC Workshop starring Daryl "Chill" Mitchell), aDVeNTUReS OF a FaUX DeSIGNeR HaNDBaG (developed with Leviathan Lab, and a part of Wesleyan University's 2011 Playwriting Curriculum), "eVeR See a FaT CHINeSe?" (produced by NYC's New Perspectives Theatre Company), TaNFORaN (produced by NYC's Barrow Group Theatre Company, presented in Leviathan Lab's Asian American Female Playwrights 2011 Short Play Festival, and included in the 2011 International art of Public Memory Conference), DO theSe GeNeS MaKe Me LOOK FaT? (commissioned by the Northern Manhattan Arts alliance), PeaCe PLaZa, WeLCOMe TO TeLeVISION (for the Barrow Group Theatre Company) and SeCONDaRY IMPACT (a play with dance, currently in development). the Christine Toy Johnson Portfolio, a collection of her work, is included in the Library of Congress Asian Pacific American Performing Arts Collection. Screenplays: NO WaVe WITHOUT WIND (with Charles Randolph-Wright), JUMPING the THIRD RaIL, DULLY FOR PReSIDeNT and OLD, FaT aND UGLY. Her short film about inadvertent discrimination, aLL AmericaN eYeS, (which she also starred in and produced) was the winner of the audience award at the Waves International Film Festival, and played the HeArts and Minds and New York International Film and Video Film Festivals. awarded three grants from the California Civil Liberties Public education Program, Christine executive produced and co-directed a documentary film with her husband, filmmaker Bruce Johnson, about the first person of color to be drafted into what is now the NBa, Japanese American basketball star Wat Misaka, of the 1947 Knicks. TRaNSCeNDING - the WaT MISaKa STORY received the "Gold Kahuna" award from the Honolulu International Film Festival, the "emerging eye Directorial Discovery award" from the Roving eye Documentary Film Festival, was an official selection of the Rhode Island International Film Festival, the Carmel art and Film Festival, the Chicago Asian American Showcase, the San Diego Asian Film Festival, and opened the Houston aPa Film Festival. as a performer, she has appeared extensively on Broadway, off-Broadway, in regional Theatres across the country, in film, television, and concerts worldwide for over 25 years. an active advocate of diversity in the industry, she is an officer and board member of the alliance For Inclusion in the Arts (which received a 2011 Tony Honor for excEllence in Theatre), and as part of the elected leadership of actors' equity association, is co-chair of the union's eastern Regional equal employment Opportunity Committee. She was honored by the JaCL (the nation's largest and oldest Asian American civil rights organization) in 2010 for "exemplary leadership and dedication." Christine is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Certificate of Screenwriting Program at NYU. She is a member of aea, SaG, aFTRa, and the Dramatists Guild. For more, please visit www.christinetoyjohnson.com.
Adventures Of A Faux Designer Handbag is a comedy about three friends frantically trying to find a replacement for a priceless special edition handbag. they are catapulted through space and time from the maze of Chinatown, New York, to the Splendid China theme park in Orlando, Florida, where they try to find out if authenticity is really in the eye of the beholder.
The story of how Maggie Jones, a quintessential 1950's Iowa housewife, learns to unleash her voice and harness her true untapped potential after discovering a series of record albums in which she must co-star in scenes pre-recorded with celebrities of the day.
Do These Genes Make Me Look Fat?, a 10-minute play, will be a part of "My Asian Mom  |||IP_ADDRESS||| ", playing Fridays and Saturdays, June 21 - July 20, 2013 at 7:30 pm at The Den Theatre, 1333 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL. Tickets: $15. "My Asian Mom  |||IP_ADDRESS||| " is made up of eight 10-minute plays inspired by Asian mothers in all their awkward glory, consisting of material written by Asian American writers from all over the country and featuring the work of directors and actors based in the Chicago area.
Ever See A Fat Chinese?
Ever See A Fat Chinese? is a 15-minute comedy. Lexy Lee has a sneaking suspicion that she's "large for her breed". She'll do anything for a major-league make-over. Or will she?
Internal Bleeding is a story of family and forgiveness, and whether the twain shall meet. a young man defies his conservative parents by joining an Olympic bound gymnastics team, instead of following the family business. Injured during a meet and paralyzed from the waist down, his parents turn their backs on him for the last time, telling him his disobedience got him what he deserved. Years later when he becomes a world-renowned physical therapist specializing in spinal chord injuries, his most difficult challenge comes when he's forced to make amends and treat someone who needs him desperately: his newly injured mother.
My Boyfriend is an Alien (and I'm okay with that)!
Taking place in Waterloo, Iowa in the summer of 1955, My Boyfriend is an Alien (and I'm okay with that)! is about Arlene, a cashier at the local Hinky Dinky, whose life changes when she falls in love with an Alien named David.
the New Deal is a comic Drama about a Chinese American woman at odds with her cultural identity and propensity towards being hyper-superstitious. Her life and luck change, though, when she travels to Hong Kong to uncover a family secret and save their New York City restaurant from demolition.
Paper Son is the story of a young Chinese man who must learn to balance his American identity with his family's immigrant journey. It's 1952, and when he meets his match in an American-born-Chinese girl, romance and new questions about the name he lost in his secretly illegal immigration follow.
a woman fears the cost of civil disobedience as she waits for her daughter to return on the day Martin Luther King is shot.
he Secret Wisdom of Trees is the story of Abby Green, an intrepid and fiercely funny octogenarian, who tries to prepare her family and herself for her journey into Alzheimer's by planting trees at the locations of her biggest memories.
a Caucasian woman married to a Japanese American man during World War II must reconcile the identity the U.S. government gives her with the one she has with her husband and children, or risk losing the only home she knows: her family.
Behind the scenes at Perfect Pitched Productions, newcomer Sabrina Lee discovers that "reality" isn't all that it's cracked up to be.