Yellow Fever at the Firehall Arts Centre – Win Tickets

A cornerstone in the Japanese-Canadian theatre canon, Yellow Fever is an award-winning comic mystery by R.A. Shiomi. It will be closing out the Firehall Arts Centre’s reunion 2021-2022 season and this is the first time in over 30 years that the production will be presented in Nihonmachi (Japantown) here in Vancouver. 

Yellow Fever at the Firehall Arts Centre

This special production will mount the production in the style of a radio play.

• When: May 28 to June 12, 2022
  • Performance Times: Tuesday-Saturday 7:30pm; Saturday and Sunday 3:00pm; Wednesday 1:00pm (pay what you like)
• Where: Firehall Arts Centre (280 E. Cordova St, Vancouver)
• Tickets: Available online now for $15

Yellow Fever is an award-winning comic mystery by R.A. Shiomi that follows hard-nosed private eye ‘Sam Shikaze’ as he investigates the disappearance of the mysterious ‘Cherry Blossom Queen’. Set on Powell Street in the 1970s, the play deftly navigates complex threads of political intrigue, racism, and police corruption with a sharp wit and fast-paced dialogue.

A cornerstone in the Japanese-Canadian theatre canon, this is the first time in over 30 years that Yellow Fever will be presented in Nihonmachi (Japantown), the neighbourhood in which it is set.

Enter to Win

I have a pair of tickets to opening night (June 1 at 7:30pm) to give away, here’s how you can enter to win:

“In choosing to bring Yellow Fever back to the Firehall for our Reunion Season – 34 years after we first produced it – I was considering how times appear to have changed, but have they really?,” says Spencer.

“In creating the work, playwright Rick Shiomi cleverly introduces us to a private detective whose beat is Vancouver’s Powell Street after the Second World War. It seems on the surface that times have changed, and a very determined Japanese- Canadian, Kenji Kadota, has been allowed to join the police force. However, when the Cherry Blossom Queen goes missing, his connection between civic duty and community are put into question. With Associate Director Raugi Yu and the wonderfully talented creative team, we are exploring a staging concept that is part radio drama and part live performance, with audiences taking a role as the studio audience, hearing and seeing the radio drama being created.” 

Directed by Donna Spencer and featuring performances by Hiro Kanagawa, Craig Erickson, Yukari Komatsu, Henry Mah, Jay Ono, Evan Rein, Agnes Tong and Raugi Yu, with stage management by Caryn Fehr. Follow the Firehall Arts Centre on Facebook for more info.