Pork Filled Productions
Pork Filled Productions tells big, pulpy genre stories with larger-than-life characters, centering people of color.
Founded: 1998
Artistic leadership: consensus-based among May Nguyen, Roger Tang, Maile Wong, Anthea Carns, Mara Elissa Palma (Executive Producers)
Website: https://porkfilled.com/
Primary venues: Theatre Off Jackson, U-Heights
The below information is provided by the theatre company. (All material is condensed & edited for clarity.)
Overview: Mission / Vision
Mission
Pork Filled Productions:
• Produces and develops genre plays
• Promotes Asian American and POC artists
• Imagines fantastical, inclusive and FUN universes.
Vision
Pork Filled Productions envisions a bright universe informed by diverse experiences and perspectives, and populated by larger than life characters where everyone’s story can be told.
Key Initiatives
Pork Filled Productions does genre theatre (science fiction, horror, fantasy, comic book, steampunk) where theatre artists of color (with a special emphasis on Asian Americans) are centered, and make up the majority of faces on stage.
Pork Filled Productions has done at least two co-productions (Yellowface with ReACT, and Night Parade with REBATEnsemble) and is open to others; currently, it is actively looking to co-produce certain scripts with other companies.
In addition to its mainstage productions, Pork Filled Productions has a script development program for authors of color. After a nationwide call for scripts, PFP selects the top scripts, matches playwrights with dramaturgs, and presents the developed scripts in a series of readings under the Unleashed banner. Of the 10 scripts selected since 2017, two have won national writing prizes and three have received full productions (with two more slotted in for the future).
History
Pork Filled Productions (PFP) is the theatre offshoot of the long-running sketch comedy group, The Pork Filled Players. It is the oldest Asian American drama group in the Pacific Northwest, founded in 1998 by Roger Tang (the only founding member still with the group), David Kobayashi, Wally Glenn and Ellen Williams.
PFP created sketch comedy as one of the only Asian American comedy groups in the country, then branched out into full-length plays and theatre pieces, producing Northwest premieres of plays like Yellowface by David Henry Hwang, and introducing the Northwest to playwrights like Qui Nguyen, Carla Ching and Prince Gomolvilas.
Recent shows include:
The Launchpad: An Evening of Sci-Fi One Acts (readings) (June 2019)
Night Parade (co-production with REBATEnsemble) (2018)
A Hand of Talons by Maggie Lee (2016)
Current/upcoming shows:
The Brothers Paranormal (Fall 2019) — a rolling world premiere (New York, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Portland) about a pair of Thai brothers, investigating an Asian-looking ghost haunting an African American couple
Old and New (staged reading, late 2019) by Kendall Uyeji, part of the Unleashed series
Statement of centering underrepresented voices & stories
Does your company center underrepresented voices and stories in the work your company puts on? If so, how?
Pork Filled Productions presents the stories members want to see on stage, where they are the heroes of the story — and since the company is three-quarters Asian American, that does the job.
As part of its mission, PFP makes sure that the majority of its actors are people of color, even when the race of the character is not specified; and it makes sure the stories it tells are centering under-represented segments of society.
Does your company center underrepresented voices in your decision-making processes? If so, how?
It happens naturally, as most of PFP’s executive producers are part of the under-represented segments. But PFP is careful to include other communities and consider their stories (e.g., PFP has done readings centering the Black, Latinx and non-binary communities).
Statement of financial accessibility
Pork Filled Productions offers a couple pay-what-you-can performances, and is experimenting with a sliding-scale “Name Your Price” rate for all performances.
NWT notes
Pork Filled Productions doesn’t do mainstage productions all that often, but when it does they’re memorable and they’re epic. In case it’s not apparent from the photos, the design work alone is worth the ticket price. PFP is one of few producing companies that really does imagine — and create — another world.