What am I working on?
TikTok Zoom, or That one time in 2020
by Lava Alapai
The final in the trilogy and set during the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020, TikTok Zoom follows the lives of Ash and Baxter( Middletown Mall), Vincent( Middletown Mall and Sunny’s Gifts and Things), Marian, and Edwin, navigating the chaos and isolation of the pandemic through technology, memory, and family tension. Ash is a software engineer overwhelmed by work, Zoom meetings, and the isolation of the pandemic when his father, Vincent, reappears after years of estrangement, suffering from memory loss. Their strained relationship is at the heart of the play as they grapple with the ghosts of their past.
Sunny’s Gifts and Things
by Lava Alapai
A prequel to Middletown Mall, in 1982, five strangers trapped inside a small convenience store in Hawaii seek refuge from the storm in the shadow of the impending Hurricane Iwa. Store owners Ana and Nobu are joined by Greg, Samantha, and Vincent. As the hurricane rages outside, tensions and secrets unfold in the cramped quarters. Sunny’s Gifts and Things is a story of connection, resilience, and Ohana.
Development History:
Staged reading - June 16th
Directed by: Luan Schooler and Melory Mirashrafi
Actors: Chris Harder, Erin McGarry, Chisao Hata, Fiely Matias, Blake Stone
Stage Manager: Kristen Mun-Van Noy
Middletown Mall
by Lava Alapai
The new millennium approaches. Four friends, Carly, Willow, Ash, and Baxter, work at a dying American mall as they prepare for the biggest karaoke contest in America, "Sing Out!” Could this finally be the way out? The big day is coming, and the world around them changes in a blink of an eye.
Middletown Mall will receive its first full production at Third Rail Repertory Theatre.
May 24th 2024 - June 9th 2024
CoHo Theater - 2257 NW Raleigh St, Portland, OR 97210
For more information and tix go here
Development History:
Past readings:
Made possible by a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council with production support provided by Third Rail Repertory Theatre-
Coho Theatre Workshop 2023
Actors: Miriam Schwartz, Treasure Lunan, Alex Ramirez de Cruz, Blake Stone, and Gavin Hoffman
Directed by Isaac Lamb
Sound design: Annalise Woods
Dramaturgy: Melory Mirashrafi
Stage Management: Kelsea Ashenbrenner
THIRD RAIL Repertory Salon Workshop 2022
Director - Isaac Lamb
Dramaturg - Melory Mirashrafi
Actors: Darius Pierce, Kailey Rhodes, Alex Ramirez de Cruz, Ash Heffernan, Elijah Sims
Alberta Abbey
Selected
Past Directing Projects
King of the Yees
by Lauren Yee
Directed by Lava Alapai
As a major player in the Yee Family Association (a men’s club formed during the Gold Rush) for nearly two decades, Larry Yee is a charming leader in San Francisco’s Chinese community. His daughter Lauren (the playwright), is eager to move away from the trappings of her childhood neighborhood, and on to new opportunities in her life. But when scandal erupts and her father goes missing, Lauren must navigate the myths and magic of Chinatown, uncover the past, and embrace her heritage in order to find her father. This funny, surreal, touching tale explores the importance of culture, race, nationality, and the joys and pains of truly getting to know family.
Profile Theatre Portland OR. 2022
Beatrice
by Dave Ragland and Mary McCallum
Directed by Lava Alapai
Beatrice Morrow Cannady was a prominent leader in Oregon’s cultural community and civil rights movement of the early 1900s.
Portland Opera - Portland OR.
Stains
by Sarah Cho
Directed by Lava Alapai
Ashland New Plays workshop
stains is a coming-of-age comedy about a teenage girl whose family sees her first period as a burden. An autobiographical play about growing up poor, female, and Korean American in Los Angeles, stains is in development as part of Moving Arts Theatre’s 2021 MADlab Playwriting Development Program and was selected to participate at the 2022 Great Plains Theatre Commons New Play Conference.
Wayfinding
by Whitney Rowland
Directed by Lava Alapai
A fantastical, poignant comedy about Jane, an emotionally-numbed new widow, and Harrison, an inattentive, self-sabotaging fiancé. In seeking escape, these two strangers collide – both literally and figuratively – tangling their life lines and setting them on a time-bending journey involving an intercontinental plane crash, a magical forest, and a choice that leads them both to an unexpected destination.
An online stage-to-film event!
The Chinese Lady
BY LLOYD SUH
DIRECTED BY LAVA ALAPAI
The Chinese Lady tells the story of fourteen-year-old Afong Moy as she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity.
October 2021
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play
by Jocelyn Bioh
Directed by Lava Alapai
Paulina, the reigning Queen Bee at Ghana's most exclusive boarding school, has her sights set on the Miss Universe pageant. But the arrival of Ericka (a new student with undeniable talent, beauty, and light skin) captures the attention of the pageant recruiter — and nearly topples the social order of Paulina’s hive-minded friends. Jocelyn Bioh's biting comedy explores the challenges facing teenage girls across the globe and cautions that while beauty may be only skin deep, its pursuit can cut much deeper.
A co-production with Artists Repertory Theatre.
Portland Center Stage at The Armory
An Octoroon
By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Co-Directed by Lava Alapai & Dámaso Rodríguez
An Octoroon is a raucously irreverent riff off a 19th Century hit melodrama set on a Louisiana plantation. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins offers a brazen and metatheatrical experience that twists a world of larger-than-life stereotypes into blistering social commentary. It’s a hilarious and gasp-inducing satire from one of America’s most thrilling writers.
Is God Is
By Aleasha Harris
Directed by Lava Alapai
Washington Ensemble Theatre - Seattle WA.
Is God Is is a modern myth about twin sisters who sojourn from the Dirty South to the California desert to exact righteous revenge. Winner of the 2016 Relentless Award, Aleshea Harris collides the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, and Afropunk in this darkly funny and unapologetic world premiere.
About
Lava Alapai is a multi-ethnic director, playwright, and photographer born in Okinawa, Japan, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In Hawaii, she caught the theatre bug and began her acting and directing career in an after-school theatre class. She and her friends made short films that she wrote, directed, and edited with two VHS players and her best friend’s camcorder.
After graduating with an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in acting, Lava left Los Angeles, toured the country as a puppeteer, and landed in Portland, Oregon. She has been creating theatre in Portland for over a decade. Some of her recent directing credits include a stage to film of Wayfinding for Willamette University, School Girls, or; the African Mean Girls play for Portland Center Stage, Is God Is for Washington Ensemble Theatre, The Chinese Lady (film and stage), The Revolutionists, and An Octoroon(co-direction) for Artists Repertory Theatre, Columbinus, Charlotte's Web and Locomotion for Oregon Children's Theatre.
Lava has enjoyed being behind the camera as director of photography and editor for Alex Getting Better, for Oregon Children Theatre, Salt for Shaking the Tree Theatre, the November Project for ManyHats Collaboration, and a multimedia pandemic project called Touch for Portland Center Stage.
In 2014 Lava and her team entered the 48hour film festival with SAFE (writer/director) and won " Best use of Character."
