Theater Mu

Theater Mu is Minnesota’s first professional Asian American theater company. Since its founding in 1992, it has impacted both local and national theater landscapes, helping to create a pan-Asian community of artists and presenting world-premiere productions that illuminate Asian American experiences.

In the early 1990s, Minnesota seemed like an unlikely place for an Asian American theater company to emerge. Yet when Dong-il Lee, a Korean graduate student at the University of Minnesota, proposed the idea of Theater Mu to Japanese Canadian playwright Rick Shiomi during one of his visits to Minneapolis, Shiomi agreed to help found the company. They partnered with Martha Johnson, a Euro-American theater professor at Augsburg College; Andrew Kim, a Korean American artist; and Diane Espaldon, a Filipina professional, to create Theater Mu in 1992. The company aimed to give voice to Asian Americans, especially those in the Midwest, and to contest their invisibility and exclusion from the stage.

One of Mu’s first tasks was building a pan-Asian talent pool. It drew from well-established Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Chinese American communities; southeast Asian refugee and immigrant communities that included Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese artists; and the state’s large population of Korean adoptees.

Mask Dance, Theater Mu’s inaugural production, showcased the stories of Korean adoptees. Their dual consciousness was reflected in the hybrid aesthetic that Mu became known for―a blending of traditional Asian performance forms with contemporary personal narratives about Asian American experiences. By bringing together artists from myriad ethnic backgrounds and experiences, Mu not only nurtured the formation of an Asian American Twin Cities community; it also shaped artists’ identities and their sense of belonging to a broader Asian America.

Multiculturalism was beginning to gain currency in Minnesota in the 1990s. As such, Mu used its well-timed artistic platform to challenge Orientalist tropes of the perpetual foreigner and exotic “other” as well as stereotypes of the model minority.

In 1997, Shiomi began teaching taiko drumming to interested Mu artists. Their passion for the form led to the formation of Mu Daiko, a professional taiko group. As taiko performances and classes grew, the company realized it needed a name change to reflect this expanded focus. In 2001, the organization became Mu Performing Arts, housing both Theater Mu and Mu Daiko.

After a decade, Mu’s theatrical aesthetic began to shift away from its initial hybrid style towards pieces that more explicitly engaged with political and social issues. In 2009, it announced a new mission statement that made social justice an explicit goal. This aided participation in activities like the 2013 protests against the Ordway’s production of Miss Saigon and forums on issues like yellow-face casting, Asian American stereotypes of the stage and screen, and employment equity.

Mu’s commitment to developing new plays continued as the company evolved, giving rise to countless young playwrights. Through more than fifty world premiere productions produced between 1992 and 2016, Mu also cultivated Asian American actors, directors, musicians, and designers. Following the lead of a wave of artists who were also accomplished singers, the company began producing mainstream and Asian American musicals, often in collaboration with larger theaters. Asian American casting of classics from the European canon rounded out their expanding aesthetic.

Through partnerships, Mu has increased its influence on the regional and national theater landscape. At the Guthrie Theater, Mu presented Circle Around the Island in the brand-new Dowling Studio in 2007. Circle marked the first time in the Guthrie’s history that a play conceived, performed, and directed entirely by Asian American artists was performed on one of its stages. Mu has since performed numerous times at the Guthrie and has partnered with many other Twin Cities companies.

Theater Mu is one of the largest Asian American companies in the country. It has developed a national presence through leadership in the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists and has helped to form the Twin Cities Theatres of Color Coalition, alongside Penumbra Theatre, New Native Theatre, Teatro del Pueblo, and Pangea World Theater.

In 2017, Mu’s theater and taiko operations separated. Mu Daiko became a new organization―Taiko Arts Midwest―under the ongoing leadership of Jennifer Weir. The theater company returned to its original name―Theater Mu―under artistic director Randy Reyes.