George Takei’s Happy Dance
George Takei announced on March 9th that the Broadway bound musical ALLEGIANCE raised $158,322! He was so pleased with the unbelievable response to the Fundraising Campaign, that he convinced his husband Brad to let him release a video of his “happy dance”.
Allegiance is an epic story of love, war and heroism set during the Japanese American internment of World War II, following the story of the Omura family in the weeks and years following Pearl Harbor, as they are relocated from their home in Salinas, California to the Heart Mountain internment camp in the wastelands of Wyoming.
Their story reflects the deep conflicts of a nation and a people divided: father Tatsuo, a successful store owner, resists their unjust internment; mother Kimiko fears for their future, quietly resigned to their fate; older son James volunteers in an all-Japanese American army regiment; and younger son Sam yearns for acceptance by and inclusion in America. The Omura’s conflicts mirror the larger rift between the Japanese American Citizens League, which urged cooperation with the internment and unwavering loyalty to America, and the resisters of the internment, who steadfastly refused to serve a country that had put them in concentration camps. This universal story sheds new light upon a dark, under-explored, and wrenching chapter of American history. Through the remembrances of Old Sam and his tutor Gloria, the painful past is revisited, and at long last, redemption and understanding begin to heal decades-old wounds.
Allegiance sheds new light upon a dark chapter of American history. With its moving score, Allegiance connects the audience with universal themes of love, family and redemption.
