About This Show
To mark the 66th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt which led to the incarceration of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II, the Smithsonian APA program proudly presents the critically acclaimed new play, Innocent When You Dream, by Ken Narasaki.
A Nisei father lies in a hospital bed, only partly aware of his two adult children who have arrived at his bedside, unsure their father will survive. While the father returns to his interned past searching for a lost first love, his children bicker and argue, not quite ready to let their last parent go. Playwright Narasaki, whose father was a 442nd veteran (the most decorated unit in U.S. military history, made up predominantly of Japanese American young men whose families ironically languished in camps, deprived of their civil rights), brings to life two disparate generations, separated by age and experience, bound together by misunderstanding and, ultimately, deep love.
