Velina Hasu Houston Biography

currently a Japan Foundation Fellow and James Zumberge Fellow. She is the author of the plays Tea and Shedding the Tiger, and her works have been produced internationally. She has received commissions from the Mark Taper Forum, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the Asia Society. Dr. Houston has received the Remy Martin Screenwriting Award from the Sidney Poitier/American Film Institute, two Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships, and has been named by the National Japanese American Historical Society as a Japanese Woman of Merit. She is currently an associate professor, playwright-in-residence, and playwriting director at the University of Southern California School of Theatre.