The Camp: An Opera in Two Acts

03/01/2025

Thanks for the shout out

Only two more chances to see The Camp: An Opera in Two Acts presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

TODAY, Saturday, March 1 at 7:30pm
Sunday, March 2 at 2:30pm

Tickets available at 

02/26/2025

A story that will resonate with you long after the final note.

Only two more chances to see the show Stage Raw calls “a compelling tale commemorating the tenacity of those surviving under unfair and unbearable conditions not of their making.”

The Camp: An Opera in Two Acts presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

Tickets available at

02/25/2025

Witness a new opera about an American family wrongfully imprisoned in 1942 and the power of collective resistance to injustice.

The Camp: An Opera in Two Acts presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

Only two performances remain: Saturday, March 1 at 7:30pm and Sunday, March 2 at 2:30pm

Tickets available at

📸: Photos by Angel Origgi

Lionelle Hamanaka, Librettist
Daniel Kessner, Composer

Steven F. Hofer, Conductor
Diana Wyenn, Director
John Miyasaki, Associate Director

Singers
Roberto Perlas Gómez, Mas Shimono
Alexandra Bass, Haruko Shimono
Tiffany Ho, Suzy Shimono
Habin Kim, Rebecca Shimono
Patrick Tsoi-A-Sue, Nobu
Krishna Raman, Commentator/FBI Agent/PFC Parker
Sarah Z. Wang, Mrs. Hosaka
Steve Moritsugu, Tana
Hisato Masuyama, Kenji
Dennis Rupp, Edwards/Reverend
Jamie Sanderson, Taylor

Creative Team
Yuri Okahana-Benson, Scenic Designer
Pablo Santiago, Lighting Designer
Kathleen Qui, Costume Designer .jlq
Brittany White, Props Designer
Bandō Hidesomi, Odori Choreographer
Tripp Pickell, Fight Choreographer

Production Team
Darlene Miyakawa, Production Stage Manager
Anthony Rivera, Assistant Stage Manager
Bill Ballou, Technical Director
Cecil Bouchier, Scenic Artist
Kelsey Gizelle, Wig Designer and Makeup Artist .makeup
Sierra Haworth, Titles Operator
Brandon Zhou, Rehearsal Pianist
Sydney Wang, Rehearsal Pianist .s.wang
Anne Marie Ketchum De La Vega, Artistic Consultant & Casting
Christine Goerke, Artistic Consultant
traci kato-kiriyama, Consultant
Azusa Oda, Graphic Design and Illustration
Darren Kessner, Website Design
Davidson & Choy Publicity, Press Representative
Helen H. Ota, Associate Producer
Katherine Means, Associate Producer
Quinn O’Connor, Associate Producer
Plain Wood Productions, Producer

02/22/2025

This story will resonate with you long after the final note. We invite you to stay after select performances of The Camp for illuminating post-show conversations!

Tickets available at

02/18/2025

John Miyasaki, Associate Director: For me this project has brought up many memories of my family and stories, both told and untold. You can learn about an event or study a moment and think that you know everything there is about it, but then an artist will show you that same story and bring up feelings in you that you didn’t know were there. This opera continues to awaken the echoes of my lineage that are stored in my bones. 

Diana Wyenn, Director: That’s so true. As someone of Jewish heritage, I have always had a very immediate relationship to the atrocities of World War II. The incarceration of Japanese Americans is part of that history but before I began working on this opera my knowledge was limited to a few paragraphs in an AP History textbook. And those paragraphs failed to hold the complexity and enormity of the injustice and loss I grew to recognize through research and conversations with U.S. concentration camp survivors and their descendants, including our librettist Lionelle Hamanaka, a descendant of Jerome concentration camp survivors.

Thank you Shari Barrett and BroadwayWorld for chatting about The Camp.

Performances begin Saturday! Get ticket at

📸: Diana, John, the composer, and several members of the cast of The Camp meeting with JANM volunteer and Rohwer Concentration Camp survivor June Aochi Berk at the Japanese American National Museum before rehearsals began.

02/17/2025

The Camp: An Opera in Two Acts is loading in to the JACCC Aratani Theatre! Starting Saturday these seats will be full of audiences here to see this moving new opera about an American family wrongfully imprisoned in 1942 and the power of collective resistance to injustice.

Join us February 22 – March 2, 2025 at JACCC Aratani Theatre. Tickets at

Presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

02/13/2025

Rehearsals are underway for The Camp! Thank you to our friends at for providing rehearsal space.

📸: Mae Koo

Only FOUR chances to see this moving new opera about an American family wrongfully imprisoned in 1942 and the power of collective resistance to injustice.

Join us February 22 – March 2, 2025 at JACCC Aratani Theatre. Tickets at

Presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

02/09/2025

Throwing it back to our incredible conversation last Sunday at the Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum with traci kato-kiriyama, June Aochi Berk, John Miyasaki, and Diana Wyenn with performances from the cast of The Camp!

Join us February 22 – March 2, 2025 at JACCC Aratani Theatre. Tickets at

Presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

01/29/2025

Joining our conversation Sunday, February 2 at the Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum are June Aochi Berk, JANM Volunteer and Rohwer concentration camp survivor, and traci kato-kiriyama, author, multidisciplinary artist, community organizer, and a descendant of camp survivors.

This preview event features a meet-and-greet with the creative and production teams and performers, as well as a rare opportunity to hear excerpts from the opera performed live. The program also includes insightful discussions on the opera’s historical and personal significance, and reflections on the creative process behind this important work.

Tickets are just $5! Learn more at

01/29/2025

Rehearsals are underway for The Camp! Check out this preview of the set from scenic designer Yuri Okahana-Benson ()

The Camp

A new opera about an American family wrongfully imprisoned in 1942 and the power of collective resistance to injustice.

February 22 – March 2, 2025
 Aratani Theatre

Presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

Tickets available at 

01/25/2025

Join us Sunday, February 2 for an exclusive preview of The Camp at the Democracy Center at the Japanese American National Museum!

This special event features a meet-and-greet with the creative and production teams and performers, as well as a rare opportunity to hear excerpts from the opera performed live. The program also includes insightful discussions on the opera’s historical and personal significance, and reflections on the creative process behind this important work.

Tickets are just $5! Learn more at

01/06/2025

A new opera about an American family wrongfully imprisoned in 1942 and the power of collective resistance to injustice.

The Camp
An Opera in Two Acts

Libretto by Lionelle Hamanaka
Music by Daniel Kessner
Directed by Diana Wyenn

February 22 – March 2, 2025
JACCC Aratani Theatre

Presented in partnership with the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

This world premiere contemporary opera, created by librettist Lionelle Hamanaka, a descendant of camp survivors, and composer Daniel Kessner, tells the moving story of the Shimono family, Japanese Americans forcibly removed from their suburban home in Southern California. After Mas, a fisherman and the head of the household, is arrested by the FBI on suspicion of espionage, the family is reunited in a desolate incarceration camp.

As the family struggles to survive the emotional and physical toll of their wrongful imprisonment, this poignant, new opera—performed in English by eleven singers and a twenty-two member orchestra—illuminates the remarkable strength of familial bonds and the power of collective resistance in the face of injustice.

Image credit: Graphic design and illustration by Azusa Oda. Original photo of Manzanar, California by Dorothea Lange, 1942.

Rooted in the historic Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) emerged from a profound journey of cultural preservation.