THE NOSEBLEED
The Nosebleed is an intimate autobiography that explores playwright/director Aya Ogawa’s fractured relationship with their long-deceased and enigmatic father. Through a series of turbulent, absurd, and poignantly comic vignettes, four actors play "Aya" while the playwright themself plays their 5-year-old son and father, as the play explores the seemingly insurmountable cultural and generational gap between Aya and their father, and the questions they face in their own parenthood today. A theatrical memorial and healing ritual for the audience, this darkly humorous, tender, and inventive play considers how we inherit and bequeath failure, and what it takes to forgive. The Nosebleed emerged from an exploratory process around the topic of failure (from personal, artistic, career, systemic), and how we as a culture typically do not create space for acknowledging, processing and honoring failure.
2022 OBIE Award Winner: Failure is almost always something we hide from each other, but this artist dared to bring their failures, and in turn our own, into the light. An autobiographical tour de force related to being both Japanese and American, the throes of growing up as a bilingual immigrant in this country and its implications with motherhood, this work utilized every performance to heal an estranged relationship with a shadowy father figure—and, in turn, addressed what it truly means to embrace and forgive the many fractal versions of ourselves looming in our consciousness. For the courageousness, the soul and humor, and the exacting moments that left us weeping toward the end, the judges have awarded a Special Obie Citation for the creation, writing, and direction of THE NOSEBLEED to AYA OGAWA.
2023 Lucille Lortel Award Nominee for Outstanding Ensemble
The Nosebleed was presented in a three-city tour from January to February of 2024 at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (co-presented by Theater Mu, Walker Art Center and The Great Northern); REDCAT, Los Angeles (presented in association with East West Players); and Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus. Featuring Drae Campbell*, Ashil Lee*, Saori Tsukada, Kaili Y. Turner and Chris Kehoe (Minneapolis), Miles Crawford (Los Angeles) and Jamie Harper (Columbus); Set & Costume Design: Jian Jung; Lighting Design: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew; Sound Design: Megumi Katayama; Production Stage Manager: Alejandra Morales*; Associate Lighting Design & Production Coordinator: Vittoria Orlando.
Photos below by Angel Origgi
The Nosebleed was produced by Woolly Mammoth Theater in Washington DC, from March 31 to April 23, 2023. Featuring Drae Campbell*, Ashil Lee*, Cody Nickell*, Manatsu Tanaka, Saori Tsukada, Kaili Y. Turner; Set & Costume Design: Jian Jung; Lighting Design: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew; Sound Design: Megumi Katayama; Production Stage Manager: Maddie Friedman; Associate Director: Nailah Harper-Malveaux; Associate Lighting Design: Christina F. Tang; Associate Sound Designer: Bryn Scharenburg; Assistant Stage Manager: Jazzy Davis.
Photos below by DJ Corey Photography
The Nosebleed was produced at Lincoln Center Theater in summer, 2022. Featuring: Drae Campbell*, Ashil Lee*, Chris Manley, Saori Tsukada, Kaili Y. Turner; Set & Costume Design: Jian Jung; Lighting Design: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew; Sound Design: Megumi Katayama; Production Stage Manager: Leah V. Pye; Props Supervisor: Nick Campano; Associate Director: Julia Izumi; Set & Costumes Assistant: Karen Loewy Movilla; Associate Lighting Design: Christina F. Tang; Assistant Lighting Design: Vittoria Orlando; Assistant Stage Manager: Luisa Sánchez Colón.
Photos below by Julieta Cervantes.
The Nosebleed had its world premiere in the fall of 2021, co-presented by Japan Society and The Chocolate Factory.
Written and Directed by Aya Ogawa; featuring: Drae Campbell*, Haruna Lee*, Peter Lettre, Saori Tsukada, Kaili Y. Turner; Set & Costume Design: Jian Jung; Lighting Design: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew; Set, Costumes & Props Assistant: Karen Loewy Movilla; Lighting Associate: Christina F. Tang; Production Stage Manager: Lenyn Hernandez Marcia; Assistant Director & Assistant Stage Manager: Julia Izumi; Line Producer: John Del Gaudio.
*Equity Member appearing with permission of Actors’ Equity Association without benefit of an Equity contract in this Off-Off Broadway production
Production photos below by Brian Rogers.
Production photos above by Brian Rogers from Japan Society/Chocolate Factory Theater production.
The Nosebleed was presented At Under the Radar’s Incoming! series in January of 2019.
Featuring performers: Drae Campbell*, Haruna Lee *, Peter Lettre, Jason Quarles, Saori Tsukada. Lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, set & costumes by Jian Jung, stage manager and assistant director Elizabeth Mak, assistant stage manager Kiyo Kamisawa
Photos below by Maria Baranova.
The Nosebleed was presented as a work-in-progress under its former title Failure Sandwich at Brooklyn Art Exchange / BAX on June 15 & 16, 2018.
Featuring performers: Drae Campbell, Ayesha Jordan, Haruna Lee, Saori Tsukada. Lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, set & costumes by Jian Jung, stage manager and assistant director Elizabeth Mak, assistant stage manager Kiyo Kamisawa
The Nosebleed was developed through the Parent Artist Space Grant at Brooklyn Art Exchange in the winter/spring of 2017, and Ogawa’s Artist Residency at BAX in the 2017-2018 season.
Photos below by Ryutaro Mishima.
The development and production of The Nosebleed was supported by the Parent Artist Space Grant and AIR Program at Brooklyn Arts Exchange and The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group/Under the Radar Incoming! Series. Subsidized studio space provided by The Play Company through the A.R.T./New York Creative Space Grant, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Support for The Nosebleed was provided by a residency at Mount Tremper Arts and The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts.