Asa Palomera

Asa Gim Palomera is a Japanese/Korean playwright, choreographer, director, and author. She has directed globally and written many plays, including Women of Asia and The Curious Lives of Shakespeare and Cervantes.

Asa Palomera is a graduate of the New York University School of the Arts (now Tisch School of the Arts). She started her career under the producer Joseph Papp at the Public Theatre and Broadway's Golden Theatre with two plays, Basic Training by Pablo Hummel and Sticks and Bones by David Rabe, which won Obie and Tony awards.

Asa left a successful career on Broadway and came to Thailand, where she was recruited as artist-in-residence in the Faculty of Arts Drama Department in the 1980s, under Assoc Prof Sodsai Pantoomkomol's tenure as department head. Among her projects was dance choreography for Ondine, directed by Sodsai. Asa remained there for ten years.

She went on to direct a modern Noh drama Pillow Of Kantan, Rashomon, Asylum and Bremen's Freedom at Chulalongkorn University, Amadeus, Equus, Five Finger Exercises at the British Council, Odd Couple at the Oriental Hotel, La Cage Aux Folles at Montien Hotel, and dance performances at Bhirasri Institute and Alliance Francaise.

Asa Palomera has been directed in New York, London, Costa Rica, Australia, Thailand, and many other places worldwide.

In Melbourne, she created the Women of Asia Company that produced Monologues and The Prodigal Daughter, which won the City of Melbourne Award for Original Play.

In 2009 Asa Palomera founded the Edinburgh Theatre Company. Her play The Curious Lives of Shakespeare & Cervantes opened at Edinburgh Adam House Theatre and was performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London before returning to Asia.

Photo credit: asapalomera.com