We are touring The Nosebleed to Seattle and Tokyo in November 2025 and we need your help!

I am self-producing this tour (which means I contract all of my actors and designers and figure out all the logistics). Though the presenting venues will cover the cost of artist fees, travel and housing while the company is on tour (in addition to most physical production costs, PR and venue staffing), the time, energy and labor it takes to get the show performance-ready is not covered. Please consider supporting this campaign to help the artists DIRECTLY. Your support is TAX DEDUCTIBLE and will pay for:

artist salaries*
insurance
rehearsal space rental
costume updates (clothes shrink and bodies expand over several years!😅)

*TLDR: I am 100% committed to paying all of my performers and designers their full fee for their work. If I don't raise enough money on this campaign, it just means that I will personally not receive my fees as writer/director, performer or producer and potentially pay for the production out of my own pocket. Does that sound pitiful? This is what it means to be a generative artist in this country -- and that's why I need your help!

MORE ABOUT THE SHOW:

The Nosebleed is an award-winning and critically acclaimed play created by me, Aya Ogawa, that has had several lives playing in New York (Japan Society/The Chocolate Factory Theater & Lincoln Center Theater), Washington DC (Woolly Mammoth Theatre), and touring to Minneapolis (Walker Art Center/Theater Mu/ Great Northern), Los Angeles (REDCAT/East West Players) and Columbus (Wexner Center for the Arts).

This play is based in intimate autobiography, exploring my fractured relationship with my long-deceased father. Through a series of turbulent, absurd, and poignantly comic vignettes, four actors play "Aya" while I play my 5-year-old son and my father. The play explores the seemingly insurmountable cultural and generational gap between me and my father, and invites the audience to participate in reflecting on their own relationships with their fathers. 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.

Winner of a 2023 OBIE Award & Nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Ensemble
Two-time New York Times Critic's Pick
Named amongst "Best Theater of 2022" by Vulture / New York Magazine
"Filled with profundity and delirious beauty" — WNYC / Gothamist 2022

From left to right: Julia Izumi (who is a playwright but was my associate director at LCT3), Kaili Y. Turner, Drae Campbell, Saori Tsukada, me, Chris Manley, Ashil Lee and John Del Gaudio at the 2023 Lucille Lortel Award Nominee reception.

MORE ABOUT THE TOUR:

The tour kicks off at On the Boards in Seattle (performances November 13-15) and then goes directly to the New National Theater, Tokyo (performances November 20-24) where we will perform in English with Japanese surtitles. We'll be rehearsing for a week in New York before our departure. Stay tuned for ticket links!

The touring production will feature the same incredible talents that have been with the show since our Lincoln Center run in 2022:

Performers:
Drae Campbell
Ashil Lee
Manatsu Tanaka (Understudy)
Saori Tsukada
Kaili Y. Turner
Christopher Kehoe (in Seattle)
Chris Manley (in Tokyo)

Designers:
Jian Jung (set & costumes)
Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lights)
Megumi Katayama (sound)

Stage Manager:
Huai Huang

Creative Producer:
John Del Gaudio

WHAT THIS TOUR MEANS TO ME:

It has been a lifelong dream to be able to bring my work to Japan, where I was born and partially raised. At the same time, I've been telling friends that this is one of the scariest things I've ever done, if not the most scary thing. There are two reasons for that:

1.) Japan is a largely homogenous society and while there are many people who live there who don't fit the mainstream (ethnically non-Japanese folks, queer and gender non-conforming folk) these voices are seldom heard. I worry that there's not much context around what it means to be an immigrant, in a minority, or queer. Will my play be received and understood?

2.) It's really frowned upon to "air one's dirty laundry" or speak ill of one's ancestors in Japanese culture. While I believe I approach the subject of my father with a lot of compassion, I'm afraid that the play could be seen as disrespectful. Maybe my relatives will disown me for speaking my truth?

Then why am I doing it? I trust that the people who have championed this play and programmed it in the theater's season believe that it will be meaningful to their audiences. If I can play a part in bringing a new perspective around what it means to be "Japanese" (or "American"), an immigrant or a minority, I think it will be worth it. The stakes are high –– and that makes the work more significant to me.

Who's in?

Production photo from Woolly Mammoth production featuring Kaili Y. Turner, Saori Tsukada, Ashil Lee, Aya Ogawa and Drae Campbell

Production photo from Woolly Mammoth production (c) DJ CoreyPhotography featuring Kaili Y. Turner, Saori Tsukada, Ashil Lee, Aya Ogawa and Drae Campbell

The Nosebleed Tour 2025

By HANAJI

The Nosebleed Tour 2025

Help us get to Seattle & Tokyo

Team Members