prince Gomolvilas- Asian Playwright

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Prince Gomolvilas

Ø Prince Gomolvilas (born August 28, 1972) is a Thai American playwright. He has written many plays which have been produced in the United States and won several distinctive awards.

Ø He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. His family moved to California when he was age seven and he spent most of his youth in Monrovia.

Ø He attended San Francisco State University and received a BA in film and screenwriting and an MFA in creative writing and playwriting.

Ø He is the recipient of the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild/Julie Harris Playwright Award, International Herald Tribune/SRT Playwriting Award, PEN Center USA West Literary Award for Drama, and East West Players' Made in America Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement for the Asian Pacific Islander Community, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and a screenwriting fellowship from The Chesterfield Writer's Film Project, a program sponsored by Paramount Pictures.

Plays

1. Big Hunk o ‘Burnin’ Love (1998)

It delves into the life of Winston, a single struggling Thai American actor striving to maintain a balanced family and social life, all while fighting off an ancient family curse. Mere days before his 30th birthday, Winston finds out that he will literally go up in flames if he does not get married before reaching his third decade. Grudgingly accepting his bizarre fate, Winston goes on a mission to find a wife. His parents force him to marry a mail-order bride from Thailand.

Winston struggles as he walks the fine line between honoring his family's cultural background and maintaining the American ideals that enmesh his daily existence, something that many young Asian Americans experience.

2. The theory of everything (2000)

This is a prize winning play. It is basically theory of life. THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING focuses on seven Asian Americans (Thai, Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese) who gather atop a Las Vegas wedding chapel every week for a UFO watch. One particular weekend brings about profound changes in all their lives when the impossible becomes a reality.

This comedy--which explores the politics of race, identity, and faith--won both the International Herald Tribune/SRT Playwriting Competition and the Julie Harris Playwright Award Competition.

3. Seat Belts and Big Fat Buddhas (1999)

Henry has been dumped by his girlfriend who never really thought they were going out. Judith has left her husband after seeing Ellen DeGeneres come out on national TV. And Lisa doesn't know what the hell to do with her man who has just popped the question.

4. Debunking love (2000)

Adam and Buddy are young Asian American best friends. Adam is gay, Buddy is a big cipher. Adam dates a white guy named Tony who urges him to use his status as a successful mystery writer to speak out for gay rights. Buddy wants him to speak out for Asian American equality. Things get tangled up romantically and thematically. Love triumphs, but, more important, so does identity.

5. Bee (2001)

The play is about a young Asian American man who is invisible to everyone except an elderly African American woman.

6. Boyz of All Nationz: The Rise and Fall of Multi Ethnic Boy Band (2002)

The band is Jerry's brain-child, as are the group's vapid, nerdy and sometimes prurient songs. While it's the "boyz" who capture the audience's attention with their buoyant smiles and refrains like "We've got spunk!" the central story belongs to Jerry. He's the one who makes a deal with the devil to produce the band's first record and soon must choose between giving up artistic control for a shot at financial success, or walking away on his own terms.

7. Mysterious Skin (2003)

In the play, main characters Brian and Neil separately suffer harm at the hands of a Little League coach when they are 8 then spend the next decade on divergent paths seeking answers to questions raised by the life-changing event. The play catches up with them as 18-year-olds. Brian, an earnest extrovert, has blanked out the episode and turns to UFO lore to explain his "missing five hours." Neil, by contrast, winds up a street prostitute with a thing for older men.

8. The Fabulous Adventure of Captain Queer. (2006)

Captain Queer, the world's most fabulous superhero, must save America from a diabolical plot hatched by Reginald Screamingbottom, the leader of an ex-gay ministry, and his mutant sidekick, Doctor Octopussy.

9. Jukebox Stories (in collaboration with Brandon Patton) (2006)

Patton, average long-haired musician, introduces his acoustic irreverence with “Help Me Get Paid to Talk About Myself,” a fitting opening. Patton and his pal Gomolvilas have created a narcissistic, self-centered show in which they talk at length about their loves, their lives and their crazy families. And it is delightful.

Reasons for his Alien and Minority based Plays: He was the only Asian Kid in his class in Indiana, everyone else being African American. He felt alienated. Thus, Working through his issues of identity not only gave him confidence but also has informed his work with a larger purpose. Also he considered himself double minority being gay.

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