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February 12, 2005

Roger Tang

Roger Tang, the head hog

Call him a producer, but he's really a mentor

By James Tabafunda
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

While comedy requires an understanding of humor, Roger Tang doesn’t see himself as being particularly funny, a quality he admits he has to work on. What Tang does see is how humor can be used to enlighten audiences about Asian Americans — namely, that they’re funny, too — and to examine critical Asian American issues.

Seven years ago, Tang, 48, and co-founder David Kobayashi created the Pork Filled Players (PFP) — a name that is reminiscent of pork-filled dumplings and refers to the tendency of its actors to ham it up. They wanted it to address, among other issues, interracial dating and standards of beauty in a non-threatening, clever way.

PFP is the latest version of Tang’s previous theater groups, “11:07 Late Night at the Northwest Asian American Theatre” (1994) and “OPM” (1996). He characterized both groups as being edgier than PFP. Wanting a more family-friendly comedy group, he and Kobayashi ended OPM and started PFP.

“Some (of our shows) are absolutely family-friendly, but we also do shows that are a little more PG-rated,” explains Tang.

PFP has anywhere from seven to 12 members at a time. “While this is an Asian American group, we’re not limited to just Asian Americans as actors,” says Tang. “I make it a point to say that a lot of things you want to say as Asian Americans have their best impact if you compare and contrast with non-Asians or white people.”

Besides acting in various comedy sketches, they all develop a variety of other skills. Tang said, “They’ll write, about half of them. The other half will want to write and we’ll say, ‘Well, this needs a little work here.’ We do make an effort to make sure that if they come up with an idea, we’ll work with it so that it’s useable on stage.”

As for a formal education or previous experience in drama, he says it’s not a must-have to join PFP. The only requirement: the talent to act. To keep PFP afloat, however, they must also be willing to take on extra duties, such as costume design, technical work and marketing.

PFP is one of many Asian American sketch comedy groups in the United States. Tang said New York City alone has two or three groups, and singled out SLANT (a performance trio that includes Perry Yung, Richard Ebihara and Wayland Quintero) as the best. Other noteworthy groups include Asians Misbehavin’ in Philadelphia, Stir-Friday Night! in Chicago and Cold Tofu (co-founded by former Seattle resident Marilyn Tokuda) in Los Angeles.

In addition to being a “single, heterosexual, Asian male (who’s) looking,” Tang sees himself as being a major supporter of Asian American actors. “I’ve been in this (theater business) long enough that I feel like I’m a mentor to developing, emerging artists. It’s important for me to be able to shepherd along emerging artists in their development,” he said.

He has produced, directed, written and acted in about four or five dozen local and regional productions, including “Red, Pork & Blue” (2004) and “Crouching Pig, Not So Hidden Chopsticks” (2001).

As a boy, he considered becoming a physicist, doctor or engineer, usual career choices among many young Asian Americans. Leaving Phoenix to attend Stanford University, he met dormmates David Hwang and Philip Gotanda. (Today, they are better known as the famous playwrights David Henry Hwang and Philip Kan Gotanda.) Tang began his career designing sets for them.

In addition to producing and writing, Tang works as a fund-raiser at the University of Washington and runs the Asian American Theatre Revue (www.aatrevue.com), “one of the better resources on the Web for Asian American theater,” Tang proudly points out.

This month, he is being kept busy with the Pork Filled Players’ latest show, “In the Mood for Lard: bacon’ whoopee & other participatory sports.” It runs Feb. 4 to Feb. 26 (Fridays and Saturdays only) at 8 p.m. at the Northwest Actors Studio, 1100 E. Pike St., Seattle. For more information, visit www.porkfilled.com or www.nwactorsstudio.org/porkfilled.shtm.

James Tabafunda can be reached at scpnwan@nwlink.com.

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