Playwright

On tour with New Conservatory Theatre
for The Other Side of the Closet.

Kendra Arimoto, MFA Playwriting Candidate at Smith College, graduated from Stanford University (BA Drama ‘05) where she won the Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, and the Edoga Prize for Creative Arts Work Involving Social Issues. Kendra also trained at American Conservatory Theatre (Summer Training Congress ’03). Her 35+ production history includes performances for One4All: SF Asian American Theatre Festival, San Francisco Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Pacific Repertory Theatre, Stanford Shakespeare Society under the direction of Ed Iskandar, and San Francisco’s highly acclaimed No Nude Men Productions under the direction of Stuart Bousel. Favorite roles include the title roles in Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, Princess in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Nora in A Doll’s House, Mrs. Darcy in One Flea Spare, Inez in No Exit, Ruth in Mathew 33:06, and Cihuatateo/Tattooist in Hungry Woman: Mexican Medea directed by Cherríe Moraga and Adelina Anthony.  She was a host for MacBreak and Local Wisdom and starred in a number of indie films, commercials and print ads.  As a playwright, her first full-length play No Traveller Returns received an EarlyStages reading at the Berkshire Fringe 2009. An adaptation of Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro and an excerpted reading of Model Minority were featured at the Smith College New Play Reading Series 2009 and 2010.  Scarlet P, a one act was produced at the Smith College One Acts Festival and directed by Jeffrey Stingerstein.  Shikataganai (It Can’t Be Helped) is the winner of the James Baldwin Fund Prize for Multi-cultural Playwriting 2010 and received staged readings at the WORD! Festival and Smith College New Play Reading Series 2010.  Kendra’s ten minute play based on the Greek god “Eos” will be featured at the 2011 Olympians Festival in San Francisco.  Next up: Kendra directs Some Mother’s Son by Darren Harned at Smith College. 

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SHIKATAGANAI (IT CAN’T BE HELPED), a full-length play by young Hapa Yonsei playwright Kendra Arimoto, titled in reference to a controversial Japanese phrase, marks a significant milestone in Arimoto’s lifelong effort to put her family’s history of incarceration on stage.

Pictured: Kendra Arimoto with parents.  Hapa Pride!

Arimoto began writing SHIKATAGANAI (IT CAN’T BE HELPED) at the age of eight years old. Back then, the story wasn’t in the form of a play, but rather a set of entries scribbled in an amethyst-colored journal after a disturbing day of grade school U.S. history. Arimoto remembers, “The summer before 4th grade, I’d been drawn to my father’s copy of Michi Nishiura Weglyn’s ground-breaking Years of Infamy because of a black and white photograph of little girls wearing tags around their necks next to a map of ‘camps’ throughout California. I knew 4th grade was the year for learning about California history and I somehow thought the two connected. I’ll never forget the moment my teacher angrily explained that ‘it’ wasn’t part of the subject matter. Confused and disappointed, I went home and questioned my parents who told me to talk with Bachan.”

Pictured: Mary Matsumoto (Kendra's bachan) at Topaz during WWII.

The following year, during fifth grade, on a thrift store typewriter gifted from Grandpa (and for an audience of one – herself), Arimoto wrote a short story about “a Nisei girl who smoked Lucky Strikes while warming up milk for camp babies.” In eighth grade she dragged her parents to a local coffee house where she read an essay about her experience at the Japanese American National Museum at open mic night. During high school, Arimoto visited Manzanar, made a makeshift documentary using an old JVC and collection of family stills, and traveled to local high schools teaching U.S. history classes. Suddenly, months before becoming the first in her family to attend college, Arimoto received tragic news. Her bachan had unexpectedly passed away. With her grandmother’s passing, Arimoto lost the ability to write on the subject of internment. Today, her 83-year-old grandfather remains the last living connection to an often buried and forgotten past. And not until attending Smith was she able to return to the project.  

Photography by Lisa Keating.
For Arimoto's acting resume, please see Theatre Bay Area.

A fierce writer, actor and activist, Arimoto Kendra Arimoto is an MFA Playwriting candidate at Smith College. She graduated from Stanford University (B.A. Drama ‘05) where, as an actress, she won the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts,

and the Sherifa Omade Edoga Prize for Creative Work Involving Social. She performed in 35+ productions, including lead roles for San Francisco's wildly popular indie theatre company, No Nude Men.  (For a fairly updated acting resume, please see Theatre Bay Area.)

Killing Polonius in No Nude Men's Hamlet directed by Stuart Bousel. November 2009.
Pictured: Kendra Arimoto and Ryan Hayes.

In 2009, Arimoto set out as a playwright to write strong roles for multiethnic actresses of all ages and “orientations.” She developed her first full-length play No Traveller Returns as an EarlyStages Playwright-In-Residence at the Berkshire Fringe with mentor Susan Kim (The Joy Luck Club). 

Productions/readings of her work include:

Scarlet P, A One Act featured in Smith College's One Acts Festival 2010.

Commissioned monologues for The Hallie Flanagan Project with Thin Man Theatre. 

A one act adaptation of Natsume Soseki's Kokoro (Smith College New Play Reading Series).

Current works-in-progress include:

Model Minority (Full-length)

Bad Wombs (Full-length/Thesis)

Hundred Grander, Or The Stable Play (Short Play)

One of today’s most exciting up-and-coming Hapa artists, Arimoto proves that while some thing’s can’t be helped, putting Asian Americans on the American stage definitely can.  Arimoto currently resides in Northampton, MA with graffiti artist Jessica Sabogal.  


Email karimoto@smith.edu for info and/or production rights and inquiries.