"Waiting for Tadashi," George Street Playhouse, 2001. Photo by Kate Raudenbush, Calligraphy by David Arthur Heinlein.
2024, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship with Brooke deRosa and The Ebell of Los Angeles for the commissioned musical, "We Can Do It."
2023, "Tea" designated American theatre canon classic by Roundabout Theatre Company, New York.
2022, "Tea" designated American theatre canon classic by HERO Theatre, Inc., Los Angeles.
2019, Best Original Screenplay, Tamara Ruppart's Path of Dreams, London International Filmmakers' Festival
2019, Theatre Communications Group Global Connections Grant in partnership with The Andrew Mellon Foundation
2018 USC Associates Award for Artistic Expression
2018, Directors’ Choice, Cinema on the Bayou Festival for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Best Short Film, New York City Winter Film Awards for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Best Short Film, Los Angeles Women’s Film Festival for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Golden Remi Award, Worldfest, Houston, Texas, for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Official Selection, Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Official Selection, Louisville International Film Festival for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Official Selection, Amsterdam International Filmmaker Festival for Path of Dreams Film
2018, Honorable Mention, Best Female Filmmaker, Lonely Seal Film Festival for Path of Dreams Film
2016-2017 Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Fellow
2016 Playwright-in-residence, The Pasadena Playhouse
2016 Kyoto University, in residence at the Institute for Research in the Humanities
2016 Named Distinguished Professor, University of Southern California
2015 Commission, The Pasadena Playhouse, Book for a New Musical about the Grammy Award-winning band Ozomatli
2015 Fulbright Scholar, Fulbright Specialist's Grant, Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku, Tokyo, Japan
2014 The Provost's Writers' Series, University of Southern California, Featured Artist
2014 Featured as one of nine world-class faculty, Meet USC, University of Southern California
2013 L.A. Stage Alliance Ovation Awards nominee, best book, Tea, With Music
2013 Aurora Foundation Challenge Grant Recipient
2012 Lee Melville Award for Outstanding Contributions to Los Angeles Theatre, Playwrights' Arena
2012 Women’s International Center’s Living Legacy Award
2011 Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Rainbow Award
2011 Loving Prize (Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, New York Foundation for Arts)
2010 Made In America Visionary Award, East West Players
2009 Women in Theatre Red Carpet Award 2009 USC Visions and Voices Arts & Humanities Initiative grant, Calligraphy: Fading Ink, Fading Memories 2009 Inaugural Recipient, USC Provost's Mentoring Award 2008 New Directions Fellow, Center for Feminist Research, University of Southern California 2008 Made in America Award, East West Players 2007 USC Visions and Voices Arts & Humanities Initiative grant in collaboration with Carol Muske Dukes 2007 Ivey Award for Messy Utopia 2007 American Theatre Critics Association Steinberg New Play Award, Finalist, for Calling Aphrodite 2007 Semi-finalist, The New Harmony Project, for The Last Resort 2007 Semi-finalist, The Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis PlayLabs, for The Last Resort 2007 USC First Contact Initiative Undergraduate Programs Breaking Bread Mini-Grant 2007-2008 USC First Contact Initiative Undergraduate Research Grant 2006 Semi-finalist, The Playwrights' Center PlayLabs, for Calling Aphrodite 2006-2007 Who's Who of American Women 2005-2006 Who's Who in American Education 2005 Semi-finalist, Playwrights' Center, for The Peculiar and Sudden Nearness of the Moon 2003 Silver Medal, Pinter Review Prize for Drama 2002-2003 James Zumberge Fellow (interdisciplinary collaborative grant with Dr. Dorinne Kondo) 1999-2000 James Zumberge Fellow (individual grant) 1999-2000 Japan Foundation Fellow (individual grant) 1997 PEN Center USA West Literary Awards,Top Five Plays, Best New Play Award finalist for Ikebana
1997 Honorable Mention for Ikebana (Living Flowers) Jane Chambers Memorial Playwriting Award 1997 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Sixteenth Anniversary Celebration 1997 Profiled in UCLA Magazine
1996 Po'okela Award, Best Original Script, Hawaii State Theatre Council, for Hula Heart
1996 Kokoro (True Heart), The Best of the Weekend, Los Angeles Times
1996 Who's Who in Asian America 1996 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Fifteenth Anniversary Celebration 1995 Kokoro (True Heart), Critic's Pick, Backstage West magazine
1995 Best Play, Santa Monica Theatre Guild, for Tea 1995 Best box office record in 50-year history, Morgan-Wixson Theatre, Santa Monica Theatre Guild for Tea 1995 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Fourteenth Anniversary Celebration 1994 Asian American Studies Association National Book Award, The Politics of Life: Four Plays... 1994 Best Original Script nominee, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics' Circle Awards for Kokoro 1994 Who's Who in Asian America
1994 Keynote Speaker, Phi Beta Kappa Regional Banquet, Kansas State University
1994 Guest Speaker, KCRW-National Public Radio's Which Way L.A. Program 1994 Guest Speaker, The Colored Museum Project: Multiculturalism and Theater in the 21st Century, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
1994 Guest Speaker, "Women, Writing, Herstory and Representations" panel on the topic of "The Japanese International Bride: History's Refugee and Theater as History," University of Hawaii at Manoa, East-West Center
1994 Guest Artist, The Asia Society (New York) for its "Out of Asia: Asian American Artists Explore Issues of Identity in America" symposium for which I performed on National Public Radio Japanese and Multicultural at the Turn-of-the-century
1994 Guest Speaker, Japan Society, New York
1994 National Judge (along with several nationally recognized playwrights, including Edward Albee), 21st Century Playwrights Festival sponsored by The Gypsy Road Company, New York, to award excellence in student playwriting
1994 Panelist, The Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies, University of Southern California; discussion of Asian American and Asian immigrant issues along with Trisha Murakawa, president of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union; Phyllis Murakawa of the Asian Pacific Women's Network; and Los Angeles County Public Defender Phyllis Shabata
1994 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Thirteenth Anniversary Celebration 1993 Necessities, Finalist in Julie Harris Playwriting Awards
1993 Necessities, Finalist in Jane Chambers Memorial Playwriting Awards
1993 Initiated into Phi Beta Delta International Honor Society for international scholars
1993 Playwrights' Advisory Committee, Audrey Skirball Kenis Theatre 1993 Tea honored by Smithsonian Institution as kick-off event for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
1993 Keynote Speaker, Mayor Tom Bradley's Asian Pacific Heritage Month banquet, Los Angeles 1993 The Matsuyama Mirror, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, excellence in theater for young audiences
1993 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Twelfth Anniversary Celebration
1992 Inaugural Recipient of the Remy Martin New Vision Award from Sidney Poitier and the American Film Institute for recognition of literary accomplishment and work that "contributes to the culture of our society and our world"
1992 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Eleventh Anniversary Celebration 1991 Top 100 Asian Americans by Transpacific magazine
1991 Profile of career featured in Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar section, July
1991 Kalito in "Celebrating Women's Work" by Northern California Women in Film and Television 1991 California Arts Council Performings Arts Fellow for Contributions to Arts in the State 1991 Honorary Co-Chairperson for New York Asian Women's Center Tenth Anniversary Celebration 1991 James Zumberge Fellow
1991 VESTA Award for positive female images in the arts, The Women's Building, Los Angeles
1991 Critic's Choice, Los Angeles Times, for Tea
1991 Critic's Choice, DramaLogue, for Tea
1991 Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts Fellow for Broken English 1990 Japanese American Women of Merit 1890-1990, National Japanese American Historical Society. Recognition of women of Japanese ancestry who have made significant contributions to the Japanese American feminine experience over the last century. Only Amerasian selected.
1989 McKnight Foundation Fellow (selected and honored, but declined due to family responsibilities) 1989 Tea, Best Ten Plays of 1988, Sylvie Drake, Los Angeles Times
1989 DramaLogue Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Award forTea
1988 Sidney Brody Literature Fellow, California Community Foundation
1988 San Diego Drama Critics Circle Award for Tea
1987 U.S.-Soviet Cultural Exchange, Theater Roundtable Member, The Mark Taper Forum. Selected by The Mark Taper Forum as playwrights' representative on the roundtable.
1987 Rockefeller Foundation Playwriting Fellow
1986 National First Prize, American Multicultural Playwrights' Festival for Tea 1986 Tea, Top Ten List, Best Plays by Women Worldwide, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, London. 1985 LA Weekly Drama Critics' Award for Asa Ga Kimashita 1985 DramaLogue Outstanding Achievement in Theatre Award for Asa Ga Kimashita (Five Awards). 1985 Who's Who in American Women
1984 Rockefeller Foundation Playwriting Fellow
1984 Author of the Year, Friends of Little Tokyo, Los Angeles 1982 National First Prize, Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award (John F. Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival)
1982 National First Prize, The David Library Playwriting Award for American Freedom (John F. Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival)
1982 Best New Plays of 1982 for Petals and Thorns, by Los Angeles' Company of Angels
1979 Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society
1979 Phi Beta Kappa National Honorary
1979 Blue Key National Honor Society
1978 Kansas City Star Scholar
1976-1979 Mademoiselle Magazine Honorary College Board
1976 Commendation for Regional Excellence, John F. Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival Regional, St. Louis, for Switchboard
1975 Outstanding Young Women of America
1973-1975 National Honor Society
GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS AWARDED
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The David Library Playwriting Award
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; New Visions, New Voices
Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship Sidney F. Brody Fellowship Los Angeles Endowment for the Arts Fellowship McKnight Foundation Fellowship California Arts Council Performings Arts Fellowship James Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund Grant All-University Pre-doctoral Merit Fellowship James Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund Grant Japan Foundation Fellowship James Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund Grant USC Visions and Voices Grant with California Poet Laureate Carol Muske Dukes USC Undergraduate Research Grant USC First Contact Initiative Breaking Bread Grant
USC Visions and Voices Grant for Calligraphy
USC Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant
