How do you make China’s 13th five-year plan, a far too dense document laying out the country’s future economic strategy from 2015-2020, appeal to the masses? Make a crazy ass video that’s the love child of Schoolhouse Rock and Joseph Goebbels.

“If you wanna know what China’s gonna do, best pay attention to the shí sān wǔ.”

Shí sān wǔ are the Chinese words for “13-five.” So you better pay attention to it, man.

China’s Five Year Plan video is a thing of beauty. It features the Great Wall, a Volkswagen camper van, a rubber duck, disembodied lips, a mixtape, a disco ball, Albert Einstein, and a guy with poo on his head.

Revival Road Workshop

The psychedelic video was created by the incredibly mysterious Revival Road Workshop, a media company that has put out a bunch of pro-China videos.

The company was behind a propaganda video earlier this year about how much the Chinese love Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Jon Jon Briones and Marcus Choi

If there’s one thing Broadway performers like doing more than singing in a Broadway musical, it’s singing the night away with other Broadway performers on a Monday night. Stroll over to Joe’s Pub any Monday night and there’s probably some sort of benefit going on with Broadway performers. In fact, my friend Sharone Tannenbaum just produced Artists for World Peace on Broadway at Joe’s Pub.

Now here’s where my friend Marcus Choi comes into play. Marcus is currently in Allegiance, a fantastic new musical starring Lea Salonga and George Takei. You should see it. It’s at the Longacre on 48th street.

Anyway, Marcus needs to start performing my song “Evil is a Yellow Face” at the countless Monday night shows.

Two years ago Marcus and the wonderful Jon Jon Briones performed “Evil is a Yellow Face” at the Japanese American National Museum as part of the Marvels & Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in U.S. Comics, 1942-1986 exhibition. They killed it. And the audience loved them.

So now that Marcus is back on Broadway I think he should dust off the Ming the Merciless costume and start singing about world domination again.

The song is from my musical China the Whole Enchilada, written with my dear friend Paul Mirkovich. In the song, Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu lament about how they were once the number one bad guys in the world but have been replaced over the years by the Nazis, then the Commies, and then al Qaeda. So they plan on making a comeback.

We’re no ordinary malcontents/We’re arch villains from the Orient /We’re Ming and Fu Manchu/
The dreaded slant eyed two/Out to destroy the human race/Evil is a Yellow Face

In the end they’re thwarted by Charlie Chan and Hong Kong Phooey.

FYI: all of those characters were at one time played by white actors, except Phooey, who was voiced by Scatman Crothers. What up with that? (I cover that info in the song as well).

Evil is a Yellow Face. You know you want to do it Marcus.

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Well, it’s not really an update since I haven’t written anything about The Arkansas New Play Festival but I couldn’t think of anything witty.

In the Dallas airport with Mark Jacobson

I’m here in Fayetteville, Arkansas at TheatreSquared for the previously mentioned Arkansas New Play Festival, to workshop my play The Quest for Don Quixote. And it’s going swimmingly. I’m fortunate to be in the featured play slot. That means the show gets 2 1/2 weeks of rehearsal before the first public reading. And mine isn’t just a reading. It’s a full-fledged staging of the show. Actors off book. Costumes. Lights. A wee bit of a set.

Mark Shanahan pontificating

After the first read-thru I made a huge cut in the first act and moved some scenes around. It seems like it’s going to work well. David Emmes, founding Artistic Director at South Coast Rep, had suggested I make some snips in the first part of the act so it was already in the back of my mind. (David also said he thinks I have a wonderfully theatrical piece that should do very well. Just saying).

Our first stab at a horse. (Comment courtesy of my old friend Ray Wagner)

Along the way I’ve been cutting, moving, and rewriting. Which is exactly what should happen at a play festival.

I’m lucky to have some friends working on the project. My dear friend Mark Shanahan is directing and he has been invaluable. Wait. I think I mean unvaluable but that’s not a word.

My good friend Bruce Warren is knocking Sancho out of the park, and new friend Mark Jacobson has captured the neurosis of his character who is more than loosely based on me. Okay. It is me.

Bruce Warren hard at work.

Bill Rogers is Quixote, Jason Engstrom is Jeffry, Liz France is the Housekeeper, and Lupe Campos is the Niece. Ashtyn Nilsen, who did music for TheatreSquared’s production of Around the World in 80 Days, is composing music for the show.

Me and the lovely Ashtyn Nilsen

In the “Theatre is a Small World” category, Jacqueline Cox, who is the lighting designer, discovered a week into rehearsal that she designed lights for a production of my show China – The Whole Enchilada in Birmingham, Alabama. Go figure.

Some of the cast and crew at Lucky Luke’s BBQ

That’s about it. I’ll post soon about my search for the best BBQ in Fayetteville.

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Today marks the 26th anniversary of the brutal crushing of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Or as it’s known in China – Thursday.

I was in China 10-years ago to adopt my daughter. In our tour of Tiananmen Square, not one word was uttered by our tour guide about the massacre. Nothing. It was the same reaction I got from every girl I ever asked out on a date.

But on our bus ride back to the airport, our 20-something tour guide got on the microphone. He was a really well composed guy, but suddenly he started having a nervous cough and was clearing his throat like he had just swallowed a handful of fermented tuna eyeballs. He said,”Now that you’ve filled out and handed in your tour satisfaction forms, let me tell you what really happened at Tiananmen Square.”

He then proceeded to tell us much of what every country in the world except China already knows about the massacre. But he also told us how his grandmother saw the Chinese army rise up out of the underground tunnels beneath Tiananmen Square and slaughter thousands of people. She saw trucks filled with bodies and body parts.

Our guide went on and on about the massacre. It was riveting. And very brave of him because the bus driver could have been a party member. Or maybe he was just grumpy. But he driver did drive up on a sidewalk to avoid backed up traffic. So there’s that.

The Great Firewall of China

The Great Firewall of China has blocked all mention of Tiananmen Square on Weibo (The Google of China). Here’s what they have blocked:

• Tiananmen Square
• Today
• June 4th
• Tank Man
• 63 + 1 (because it adds up to 64, or June 4th)
• 65-1 (for the same mathematical reason)
• Democracy
• Memorial event
• Crush
• Crush and destroy
• Assemble
• Revolt
• Open fire
• Today
• Tomorrow
• Yesterday
• That year
• That day
• Demonstrate
• Gunfire
• Hunger Strike Declaration
• Protest
• Suppress
• Tank
• June
• Jun+4
• Six+four
• Six 4
• 6 four
• Liusi (Pinyin for “six four”)
• Six four
• TAM (abbreviation for Tiananmen)
• Martial law
• Student movement
• Student strike
• Student federation
• Massacre
• Beijing massacre

And my favorite:

• Big Yellow Duck

The censors mean business.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace

All of this was in my mind when I wrote the song “The Gate of Heavenly Peace” for China The Whole Enchilada. I took the image of the troops coming up from the tunnels and wrote:

“The ground cracked open and the sky grew dark

Came a rumbling across the land

The devil rose up and he declared

I’m gonna crush your faith into the ground

I’m gonna crush your faith into the ground

I’m gonna crush your faith into the ground

At the Gate of Heavenly Peace”

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I got a Google alert that the Eastchester Players Club in New York will be doing my show Around the World in 80 Days this weekend.

Yeah, I get Google alerts about my shows. I like to see is there’s anything I need to know about my shows. Like whether I’m having an Off-Broadway production, or being awarded Outstanding Musical, or having a World Premiere. Was that shameless promotion noticeable?

Anyway, when I found the kids at the Eastchester Players Club in Eastchester, NY were doing my show I thought I’d take a look to see what they were doing with it.

What they’re doing with it is blowing it out of the water. It looks like a monumental production. One of the things I love about it is that they have found ways to get as many actors involved in the show as possible. The choice to cast as many actors that will fit on stage was one of the things I set out to do when I wrote it. The script is designed for five actors to play thirty-nine characters. I like the theatricality of that conceit and, let’s be honest, I like the budget of needing only five actors. But I also wanted schools, am-drams, and community theatres to be able to get as many actors involved as possible. Watch the video below at the 0:51 mark and take a look at how many members are at the Reform Club. In the five-actor version there are four members. This one looks like it was free meal day at the Club.

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Getting your play published is thrilling and I get extremely excited when one of my publishers decides to publish one of my scripts. (I work with Dramatic Publishing and Samuel French). The reach of a good publisher is worth its weight in gold. Without a publisher I never would have had all the productions I’ve been fortunate to have.

But one down side of it is you don’t really know if people are reading the scripts, if they like them, or if they’re using them as kindling.

That’s why I was excited to see this article the other day.

Roseville High School Counselor Marie Oleksiak, who runs the drama club, decided to do Mark Brown’s “The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge” due to its comedic side.

“I actually was going through the catalog a while back and found the script and thought it sounded interesting,” Oleksiak said. “I read it and fell in love with it. It’s just really nice humor and … when you read ‘A Christmas Carol,’ this show kind of brings to mind the questions you have as you’re watching it or reading it. It’s a fun twist on an old story.”

How cool is that? You know, that never gets old. It’s an amazing feeling to know that something I created has an affect on people. That someone falls in love with something I’ve written.

And I also love that kids enjoy it.

She said the students have been enjoying the humor and little twists of the story as they pick apart the script’s finer details.

And there are a couple of obviously extremely intelligent high school students outside of Chicago who are using China – The Whole Enchilada as their piece for the IHSA Speech competitions.

It’s always so surprising to me.

Thank you all for for choosing to do one of my scripts.

Now don’t mess it up.

I kid. I kid.

But seriously, don’t muck it up.

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A few weeks ago I received an email from Natalie Bozzetti. My first reaction was, “Good God, another restraining order?” Happily, it turns out Natalie is a high school senior outside of Chicago and a member of her school’s speech team. She and her speech team partner, Nisha Riley, want to use China the Whole Enchilada in the IHSA Speech competition.

What!?

How do two high school girls outside of Chicago know about China the Whole Enchilada? Which is exactly what I asked her.

“Nisha saw two males perform your script at a speech competition about two years ago.”

Oh, okay. Wait. What?

It seems, and I have no idea how it happened, but high school students in Illinois are using China the Whole Enchilada in Speech tournaments.

“According to Nisha and my coach, a couple of schools have had a lot of success with the piece and have received belly bursting laughs if done well!”

DeKalb students Renee Larson and Jake Willrett nabbed 1st place in the Regionals and Sectionals.

I’m gob-smacked. I have no idea how my show was discovered by high school students. After receiving rave reviews at the World Premiere at the New York Fringe Festival and being awarded Outstanding Musical, the show hasn’t been produced too much. There’s a fine line that needs to be walked when doing it and not all productions have been successful with that walk. One of the more successful productions was by Theatre LaB Houston.

So you can imagine my surprise at getting a letter from two high school students who want to do the show.

“It’s hard to find a well written hilarious script, such as yours. Nisha brought up the idea about China The Whole Enchilada. We read a sample of the script and LOVED IT! We just knew it would be the perfect piece.”

I think I just found my new PR agent.

What Natalie wanted to know was whether having two girls perform it would go against my intent of the show. Turns out there are strict Draconian rules with the IHSA Speech circuit and competitors can’t against the author’s intent. Since my intent was to have the show performed I couldn’t see a problem with two extremely intelligent students with impeccable taste in ribald theatre performing the show.

A Very Brief History of China the Whole Enchilada

What started out as a play about the history of China turned into a musical when the idea of the invasion of the Khans being a musical number popped into my addled mind. I then wrote a waltz about foot binding, a duet for Ming the Merciless and Fu Manchu and several more songs. I was able to trick my good friend Paul Mirkovich into working on the show and his arrangements are amazeballs. A musical was born.

Enchilada opened Aug 8, 2008 (the same day the Beijing Olympics opened) at the New York International Fringe Festival. It was named Outstanding Musical and then was optioned for a commercial run. We did backers auditions in NYC and LA (to our amusement, at ICM) but then the financial world imploded. No one was investing in anything, let alone a three-man musical about China.

For those of you who like to buy holiday gifts early, might I suggest a copy of this wickedly funny comedy.

I am indebted to Eric Hissom, Philip Nolen, Brad DePlanche and Jim Helsinger for the development of China the Whole Enchilada. I wrote the show with them in mind and they all did the workshop and the NY Fringe Festival production. I couldn’t have asked for a better team. They put up with all of my rewrites during the workshop. They dove into now long gone scenes such as the perpetually high Rastafarian panda and the Chinese Language Lesson.

My favorite moment during the workshop was when I was struggling with the Chinese Exclusion scene. All I had was a talking head and it was beyond boring. I went back to the hotel that night and crapped out what would become the vaudeville-esque sketch about a Chinese immigrant trying to enter the United States. I came into rehearsal with a ton of pages. We sat down and dove right in. I made some cuts and then we put it on its feet. Half an hour later we were moving on to another scene. That’s how good they are.

Back to Natalie and Nisha

So, Natalie Bozzetti and Nisha Riley, thank you for wanting to do the show. I hope you defeat your competition like China defeated — um – like China defeated — um –okay, so China hasn’t really defeated anyone, unless you go back to 1522 when the Ming defeated the Portuguese in the Second Battle of Tamao.

So defeat your competition as well as China cranks out counterfeits.  I hope you win the whole enchilada.

And remember: you can’t spell enchilada without C.H.I.N.A.

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China has been rolling out  safe havens, little shelters, where parents can abandon their child without fear of facing charges or revealing their identity.  At Guangzhou’s first safe haven,  51 children were abandoned in the first 13 days of operation, according to China Daily.

Not all the children were babies. Some were 5 and 6 years old. But all of the children were critically ill or disabled.

There’s been a lot of controversy about the program, as some feel it will just become a dumping ground. And already the number of abandoned children has exceeded the estimate by government officials.

While it may seem cruel for parents to abandon their children, and we have no way of knowing why they’re abandoning their children, it beats the alternative. I adopted my daughter from China in 2005. She was abandoned in a park. Fortunately she didn’t join the 70-million girls who met a worser fate.

China has a huge social issue that needs to be addressed.

Photo Courtesy: Xinhua

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To commemorate Mao’s birthday, here’s a demo recording from my musical China – The Whole Enchilada, written with my friend Paul Mirkovich. In the show, the song is sung by Joseph Stalin.

The post China Celebrates Mao’s 120th Birthday appeared first on Mark Brown - Writer.

Then I was going to say how I just wrote a long-ass sentence.

Then I was most likely going to make a joke about Rafu Shimpo being the forgotten Stooge.

But then I looked up Rafu Shimpo, because truth be told I had no idea what The Rafu Shimpo was, and was amazed at what I discovered.

The Rafu Shimpo is a a Japanese-English language newspaper based out of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. It started out in 9103 as a one-page, mimeographed newspaper. The paper is 110-years old. Shut the front page! Things were going along swimmingly for the paper, but once the U.S entered World War II, the U.S. government forced the Rafu Shimpo to close its doors. Oh that pesky Executive Order 9066.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, H. T. Komai (The paper’s manager) was among the Japanese-American community leaders arrested and interned by the FBI. Akira Komai kept the paper running until April, 1942, when it closed as Japanese-Americans were being sent off to relocation camps across the West.

The paper was revived after the war, thanks to Akira Komai’s foresight and the loyalty of his employees. Komai had arranged for the plant’s rent to be paid during the war and hid the Japanese type under the floorboards. When he was refused loans at local banks, three employees loaned him $1,500. The first postwar issue was published on Jan. 1, 1946.

Today the newspaper, along with nearly every other newspaper in the world, is suffering from dwindling readership. But it’s still alive and kicking, 110-years later. I hope the same can be said of me when I’m 110.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, head on down to the Japanese American National Museum to see Marvels & Monsters Unbound. And while you’re there, go see the newly opened exhibit: Go For Broke: Japanese American Soldiers Fighting on Two Fronts. The exhibit chronicles the history of Japanese American Nisei soldiers from the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and Military Intelligence Service who served during World War II to prove their loyalty to the nation that had disowned them.

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