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US theater professor visits for lecture and scouting

Edward Emanuel, a professor of theater arts at California State University, Fresno, and winner of the Mark David Cohen National Playwriting Award, is in Taiwan to give two lectures while scouting talent for roles in his new play.

Emanuel, who received a PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1983, is giving a two-day seminar at National Normal University in Taipei beginning yesterday, providing instruction and inspiration to Taiwanese students on impromptu acting and stage direction techniques.

The author of 36 plays and films including Guys Like Me and Bogey, and winner of the Edinburgh International Festival of the Arts Fringe First Place Award, Emanuel will also take his time during his three-day visit in Taiwan to scout talent to play roles in his new play titled Amazing Taiwan.

Speaking at a news conference in Taipei yesterday, Emanuel said Amazing Taiwan is a play about compassion that he has been writing over the past eight years after being told touching stories from the deadly earthquake that struck Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999.

Emanuel said Amazing Taiwan, a musical, is expected to make its debut on the US west coast at the end of this year at the earliest.

Through this show, he said, people around the world will see that Taiwan is a place of love, hope and strength.

Emanuel acknowledged that three days were not enough for him to complete a full talent scouting mission here, but his career partner, Edna Garabedian, will come to Taiwan in April for a second round.

Garabedian, an accomplished opera singer, who won first place at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and is the director of the California Opera Association, is expected to stay in Taiwan for one week, Emanuel said.

Works by Emanuel also include Conquest of My Brother, which also won an Edinburgh Fringe First Place Award and was nominated for an Emmy as a docudrama.
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