Founder Leslie Ishii:
Actor/Director/Writer/Producer
theselfstarter.com
Leslie Ishii attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995 as a delegate and artist. This was the commencement of developing her Self-Starting course at UC, Irvine, where graduate and undergraduate students learn strategies and skills to start their own projects and develop their artistic voices beyond the University setting. Leslie is currently completing a website and workbook that will accompany the Self-Starting course. She also teaches acting courses to undergraduates at UC, Irvine.
Leslie has also developed and teaches a leadership/diversity training course for artists at the American Conservatory Theatre. She is also the member of a team of artists led by Kat Koppet that bring diversity training to law firms and corporations. This past Spring she piloted the Self-Starting course at ACT.
In 2002, Leslie co-founded GraceChannel Productions, to develop projects and curriculum dedicated to creating social and world change. GraceChannel Productions is currently producing a documentary series featuring the wisdom of three influential Japanese American Female Activists: Yuri Kochiyama, Janice Mirikitani, and the late, Marie Ishii.
GraceChannel Productions just completed a short documentary in February 2005, featuring the life’s work of human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama. This short documentary received rave reviews where it screened at the Japanese American Citizens League’s Annual Day of Remembrance event hosted by the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where Mrs. Kochiyama was the keynote speaker.
Leslie is currently developing a play called, Hidden, the story of a Japanese American family dealing with the issues and dynamics of disability [in a relative born in the Internment camps] and Lou Gehrig’s disease in the mother of the family. She also continues to write and develop a collection of short stories called, 47th Avenue South, the recollections of a Japanese American girl who is third and a half generation and how she and her family broke the color line in their neighborhood starting in the late 1950’s.
Leslie graduated from the University of Washington with Bachelor’s degrees in Music Performance (Clarinet) and Music Education. Acting credits at the American Conservatory Theatre, where she also received her MFA as a Friends of ACT fellow, include Antigone directed by Carey Perloff, Utterances directed by Joesph Chaikin, A Christmas Carol and The Imaginary invalid both directed by Laird Williamson, and Twelfth Night directed by John C. Fletcher. Leslie performed on Broadway in James Clavell’s Shogun, The Musical in the principle role of Lady Fujiko. She has worked at the Mark Taper Form, South Coast Repertory, El Teatro Campesino, New Mexico Repertory, Northwest Asian American Theatre and other Seattle based theatres. She has also worked extensively in film and television and can proudly say she has worked in nearly every format from one hour drama to half-hour sitcom to soap operas to feature films to independent films. Leslie has also taught for fifteen years and ran the conservatory for two years at East West Players Asian American Theatre in Los Angeles. She also served as Vice President and was a founding member of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans.
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