Lava Alapai.
PORTLAND, ORE.: Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) has named Lava Alapai to be their new affiliate creative director. Alapai, a resident artist on the theatre, will take part in a one-year management residency with creative director Jeanette Harrison as a part of Artists Rep’s DNA: Oxygen program.
“Lava was a key part of why I was so excited to come to this community and get involved,” Harrison, who joined Artists Rep final fall, stated in an announcement. “Lava is an inspiring emerging leader, and I am so thrilled to foster her growth and have her join the artistic leadership team.”
The residency was designed by Harrison and the unique DNA: Oxygen group members to handle inequities and and supply a house for Black artists throughout the ART group. Harrison acknowledged that DNA: Oxygen’s function is to “disrupt systemic pipelines to power and creation by centering BIPOC artists as leaders, as thinkers, and as generators.”
Alapai is a multi-ethnic playwright, director, and photographer born in Okinawa, Japan, and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Alapai has toured the nation as a puppeteer and has been creating theatre within the Portland space for over a decade, together with with Willamette University, Portland Center Stage, Artists Rep, Anonymous Theatre Company, and Oregon Children’s Theatre. She has directed multimedia and filmed theatre initiatives, and her quick movie T.I.N.A. screened on the 48 Hour Film Project’s Portland pageant. Alapai’s play Middletown Mall is presently in improvement and obtained funding help from the Regional Arts and Culture Council. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, Alapai is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Dramatists Guild.
“I’m excited to go on this journey with Artists Repertory Theatre, which has been my artistic home for the past few years as a resident artist,” Alapai stated in an announcement. “I look forward to connecting with the Portland community in my new role.”
Established in 1982, Artists Repertory Theatre is Portland’s oldest skilled theatre firm. The firm goals to supply intimate, provocative theatre and supply a house for a various group of artists and audiences to take inventive dangers. As of 2021, Artists Rep had an approximate funds of $2 million.
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