In 1996, I was in a play directed by Joel Gersmann called "Nazi Boy." "Nazi Boy" was a story about Horst Wessel, who was the first skinhead. This was, in fact the third play about Third Reich that Joel had done, and Joel stated that after this, he would never do another nazi play again.
So, on the way home, Joel mentions to me that he wants to do a show called "A Very Nazi Christmas." We laughed (although you never know if Joel's kidding when he says stuff like that), and I commented on his continuing obsession with the second world war.
"Why can't you focus on something else that happened during the war,' I said, "like the internment camps?"
"You mean a sitcom about the Japanese internment?"
"Sure! You could call it 'Yoshi's Heroes, or Leave It Toshiba.'"
We laughed for several seconds, sung the theme song to Hogan's Heroes, and I started joking about what such a play would look like.
The next day, he asked me to do it for the 1998 season.
Carolina Fatt (Natalia Gakovich), ready to kick some serious ass.
I had not expected to get a shot at writing and directing so early--"Nazi Boy" was only my second play for Broom Street and my first play for Joel (since Joel is the artistic director of the theater, he decides who will direct, and he only chooses people who he has worked with so that he knows he can trust them carry it through), so my reaction to getting a directing slot was all of one word:
D'ohh.
But the idea, I thought, was a good one, and Joel really liked the ethnic implications of my directing the show (Joel simply couldn't get away with a show on this same subject--I'm part Japanese, so I not only could, but I'd be patted on the back for it) so there was no getting around it. If I wasn't ready to write and direct a play, I would become ready.
Plus, I had two years, for God's sake.
Colonel Krink (Brian Wild) catches Yoshi Takashida (Joe Weiner) breaking into his office. Daisy Ishimi (Molly Vanderlin) stands by helplessly, as guards Garland and Phillip (Christian Felland and John Sable) discuss their loyalty to Krink.