Japanese American actress Takayo Fischer has appeared in films The Pursuit of Happyness and Moneyball, and enjoyed success in musicals and plays across the country. Her newest production Nisei Widows Club: How Tomi Got Her Groove Back opens at the East West Player’s Theater in Los Angeles this week.
The Nisei Widows Club follows the story of four Nisei senior-citizens who travel to Hawaii in order to console a friend who has just lost her son to a sudden heart attack. The term “Nisei” describes second-generation Japanese individuals born in America.
For Fischer, playing the part of a Nisei woman in post-war America hits close to home. As a child, she and her family were uprooted from her hometown of Hardwick, Calif. and moved to an internment camp like thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II. Although the experience was painful, Fischer credits the camps for exposing her to kabuki theater:
“My passion and love affair with theater, I think it came from that introduction to kabuki,” she said. “I don’t even remember realizing it at the time.”
To read more about the play’s subject matter and Fischer’s love affair with acting, go to DT News.
Nisei Widows Club: How Tomi Got Her Groove Back opens on Thursday, Nov. 14, at East West Player’s David Henry Hwang Theatre in Little Tokyo. It runs through Dec. 8.
