Jessica Hagedorn
Encyclopedia
Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn (born 1949) is a Filipino-American playwright, writer, poet, storyteller, musician, and multimedia performance artist.
to a Scots-Irish
-French-Filipino mother and a Filipino-Spanish father with one Chinese ancestor. Moving to San Francisco in 1963, Hagedorn received her education at the American Conservatory Theater
training program. To further pursue playwriting and music, she moved to New York
in 1978.
Joseph Papp
produced her first play Mango Tango in 1978. Hagedorn's other productions include Tenement Lover, Holy Food, and Teenytown. Her mixed media style often incorporates song, poetry
, images, and spoken dialogue.
In 1985, 1986, and 1988, she received MacDowell Colony
fellowships, which helped enable her to write the novel Dogeaters, which illuminates many different aspects of Filipino
experience, focusing on the influence of America through radio, television, and movie theaters. She shows the complexities of the love-hate relationship many Filipinos in diaspora
feel toward their past. After its publication in 1990, her novel earned a 1990 National Book Award
nomination and an American Book Award
. In 1998, La Jolla Playhouse
produced a stage adaptation.
She lives in New York City with her younger daughter.
Biography
Hagedorn was born in ManilaManila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
to a Scots-Irish
Ulster-Scots
The Ulster Scots are an ethnic group in Ireland, descended from Lowland Scots and English from the border of those two countries, many from the "Border Reivers" culture...
-French-Filipino mother and a Filipino-Spanish father with one Chinese ancestor. Moving to San Francisco in 1963, Hagedorn received her education at the American Conservatory Theater
American Conservatory Theater
American Conservatory Theater is a large non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. A.C.T. was founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and Carnegie Tech by theatre and...
training program. To further pursue playwriting and music, she moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 1978.
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
produced her first play Mango Tango in 1978. Hagedorn's other productions include Tenement Lover, Holy Food, and Teenytown. Her mixed media style often incorporates song, poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, images, and spoken dialogue.
In 1985, 1986, and 1988, she received MacDowell Colony
MacDowell Colony
The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...
fellowships, which helped enable her to write the novel Dogeaters, which illuminates many different aspects of Filipino
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
experience, focusing on the influence of America through radio, television, and movie theaters. She shows the complexities of the love-hate relationship many Filipinos in diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
feel toward their past. After its publication in 1990, her novel earned a 1990 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
nomination and an American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
. In 1998, La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...
produced a stage adaptation.
She lives in New York City with her younger daughter.
Anthologies that include Hagedorn's work
- Four Young Women, ed. Kenneth Rexroth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973).
- Time To Greez! Incantations From the Third World Time To Greez! Incantations From the Third World, eds. Janice Mirikitani, et al. (San Francisco: Glide Pubs., 1975).
- American Born and Foreign: An Anthology of Asian American Poetry," eds. Fay Chiang, et al. (New York: Sunbury Press Books, 1979).
- Breaking Silence: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Poets, ed. Joseph Bruchac (New York: Greenfield Review Press, 1983).
- The Open Boat: Poems From Asian America, ed. Garrett Hongo (New York: Doubleday, 1993).
- Stars Don't Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth, eds. Karen Kelly and Evelyn McDonnell (New York: New York University Press, 1999).
- Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists, ed. Theodore S. Gonzalves (San Francisco and St. Helena: Meritage Press, 2007).
External links
- Guide to the Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn Papers at The Bancroft Library
- Finding aid for the Roberta Uno Asian American Women Playwrights Scripts Collection, 1924–2002, featuring Mango Tango (1978), Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon (with Ntozake Shange and Thulani Davis) (1978), Holy Food (1988), and Airport Music (with Han Ong (1993) at the Special Collections and University Archives, W.E.B. Du Bois Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Modern American Poetry
- Jessica Hagedorn & The Gangster Choir - Tenement Lover (MP3 file) from the LP "A Diamond Hidden In The Mouth Of A Corpse" (1985) hosted on UbuWeb.