reiko ho
recent projects.
upcoming projects.
• July 2023: The Chinese Lady (MVT)- Hawaiʻi Premiere, Director
• August 2023: Civil Beat Hawaii Storytellers -Storytelling Coach / Creative Consultant
• August 2023: The Carp Who Would Not Quit (HTY National Tour) - Director / Playwright
• November 2023: Cry It Out (Studio Theatre Tierra Del Sol, Florida) - Director
• January 2024: Childrenʻs Theatre Company, Minneapolis- The Carp Who Would Not Quit
• April 2024 The Great Race (HTY) -World Premiere, Director / Playwright
about.
Reiko Ho is a Hawai’i- based director and theatre maker. She holds a Masters degree in Theatre and Dance with a special focus on Asian Theatre and Theatre for Young Audiences. She is an accomplished theatre artist and part of the Emmy® award winning team creating Honolulu Theatre for Youthʻs hit television show, The HI Way. Reiko is yonsei, fourth generation born and raised in Hawaiʻi, and she is especially committed to telling stories that speak to the diverse communities of her island home. Much of her directorial work in her decades-long career focused on developing original works by emerging Hawai’i artists and creating new content. She is currently Artistic Associate for Honolulu Theatre for Youth, a member of The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA), and on the Board of Directors for TYA/USA.
aloha
My name is Reiko.
Iʻm a theater maker, a mom, a martial arts sensei, and slightly obsessed with Japanese milk bread recipes. Mostly, Iʻm just a human who loves to make sense of the world by telling stories through my Hawaiʻi born, multi-ethnic lens.
My great grandparents on both the Japanese and Chinese sides of my family arrived in Hawaiʻi in the early 1900s to work on the sugar cane plantations along side Hawaiian, Filipino, Korean, and Portuguese laborers.
I identify as Japanese and Chinese and am very proud of my Asian heritage. I love creating theater that reflects the diverse voices of my 'ohana and the community in Hawaiʻi. I love Pidgin, the language that developed as a method of communication on the plantations, and I love to see representation of these voices and faces onstage and on my production teams.
I believe theatre should reveal, should embrace, should be the start of important conversations.
I grapple with generational, systemic trauma and the constant code switching which is part of daily life. Lately, Iʻve been reflecting on how we sometimes erase ourselves, and I think about what it means to be considered “other.” I am not “Hawaiian.” I am not Japanese from Japan. I am not Chinese from China. I am never considered "White" although there is a little French in the mix on my Chinese side. When I am on the Continent, the mainland US, I am asked where I am “really from.”
Growing up in Hawaiʻi has taught me to focus on what is in my heart-- my heart that is all of these things. I live in the space between many places and cultures.
It is from this space that I make theater.
