2024 SDCF Zelda Fichandler Award Recipient: Leslie Ishii
Photo by Jovell Photography, Alaska
The 2024 Zelda Fichandler Award will be presented to Leslie Ishii, director, arts educator, activist, and community builder based in the western region. She will receive an unrestricted award of $5,000 from SDCF. Snehal Desai has been named as a finalist. Leslie and Snehal will be recognized in a virtual ceremony open to the public in Spring 2025.
The selection committee for the 2024 Fichandler Award was chaired by director M. Graham Smith, who was joined on the committee by directors and choreographers Sara Bruner, Karina Gutiérrez, Jeffrey Lo, and Chip Miller.
“The committee was inspired by the many remarkable artistic and civic accomplishments of this year’s nominees for the Zelda Fichandler award for the Western Region. Each of them is extending and transforming Zelda’s legacy in bold and unique ways. It is with great joy that we recognize Leslie Ishii as the 2024 Fichandler Award winner for her sustained record of service in the Western region spanning a remarkable variety of theatre making, community building, and advocacy achievements. The committee also honors Snehal Desai as this year’s finalist; his artist vision and bold leadership galvanizes our confidence in a robust future for our field. As we lift up their work with this award, we are reminded how they continually lift up and serve our field. Reflecting together on Zelda’s pathbreaking, we know that both Leslie and Snehal will be beacons to future generations of directors.”
— M. Graham Smith
“Amidst the Los Angeles fires, where I have been visiting with my spouse and community throughout this holiday season, I share that I am heart-sick for those suffering over lives, homes and evidence of histories lost. At the same time, I am extremely grateful for my safety and a roof still over my head. As myself and our colleagues work to support each other through this disaster of historic proportions, I am so proud of our theatre community which has reached out to check each other’s status and to support with volunteering, donating and making sure we each have updated information and support to receive resources if needed. With this disaster, we see our future unfold before us here in Los Angeles and recognize even more those who have repeatedly struggled with climate change.
Community care is always my priority and I observe as we are tested each day with warnings and evacuations, each of us are ever prepared as we lead with the trust that has been built over productions, seasons, and years throughout our careers. I believe Zelda would be proud of us leading and working as the largest ensemble ever and how we are already imagining our future and how we can rebuild it truly honoring the leaders, elders, and descendants of the sacred homelands of the Gabrielino-Tongva, Chumash, and Indigenous of this region. We have an opportunity to create processes and models that work to cure and bring forth transformative systemic change for healing justice, resilience, and our collective liberation. I am deeply humbled and honored to receive the 2024 SDC Foundation Zelda Fichandler Award and I hear Zelda whispering in my ear to lead from Alaska to the Lower 48 to keep working with our colleagues and communities for our sustainability as we are called to tell the true stories and histories that support reclamation of our health and well being.”
— Leslie Ishii
Leslie Ishii’s Bio:
Leslie Ishii (Artistic Director, Perseverance Theatre), a Yonsei, fourth generation Japanese American, debuted as an actor in Northwest Asian American Theater’s Breaking The Silence that raised legal defense funds for, WWII US Concentration Camp Resister, Gordon Hirabayashi and his Supreme Court Case. This standing room-only event featured the first play to publicly share the history and stories of Japanese American WWII Concentration Camp survivors, resisters, and their descendants. It also began the intergenerational healing of the Seattle Japanese American community. Since then, Leslie has felt called to support the storytelling that is the healing justice of Black/Indigenous/People of Color (BIPOC) artists and communities.
As a director, arts educator, activist, and community builder, Leslie is deeply grateful to have also worked with legacy BIPOC theatres; El Teatro Campesino, East West Players, National Black Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Theatre Mu, Native Voices, and emeritus, Asian American Theatre Company. These artistic opportunities have informed her passion for directing and creating theatre deep in community. Leslie thrives on her creative and learning edge when advocating for BIPOC, LGTQ2SIA artists and those of marginalized groups in every initiative, space and creative process with which she curates and engages. Humbly, she continues to learn and practice decolonization and re-indigenization to operationalize racial equity and healing justice to liberate and celebrate artists, their histories, their Ancestors.
(Service) Board President: Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists; National New Play Network, Board Member, Strategic Planning Co-Chair, Membership Committee; Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, E/D/I/A Committee; Anchorage Arts Alliance, Steering Committee; Professional Non-Profit Theater Coalition, founding Planning Committee, Co-Chair Coalition Building and Website Subcommittee; National Theatre Conference Member; artEquity, National Faculty.
(Awards) United States Artist Fellowship, 2023; SDC Zelda Fichandler Director Award Finalist 2022; SDC 2016, 2017 National Standout Recognition for championing equity/inclusion; Doris Duke Charitable Foundation National Theatre Grant Recipient; New England Foundation for the Arts Capacity Building Grant Recipient; James P. Shannon Leadership Institute; Teachers Making A Difference, Los Angeles County Supervisors/City of Los Angeles, 2019; Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival Integrity Award, 2019.
(Social Justice Leadership & Organizing) Tsuru For Solidarity, Co-Chair, Direct Action Design/Artist Committee; Community-organized and co-directed the 1st and 2nd Freedom and Focus International Fitzmaurice Voicework® Conferences in Barcelona, Spain and Vancouver, Canada. Leslie has been a featured presenter at voice and performance conferences in Mexico City, Mexico, Barcelona, Spain, and Vienna, Austria and was on the team that launched the Theatre Communication Group’s Equity/Diversity/Inclusion Institute; Arts For LA ACTIVATE Cultural Policy Cohort; Los Angeles County Supervisors’ Cultural Equity Inclusion Initiative Work Groups; East West Players 2042 See Change Initiative; Co-Founder/Director of the National BIPOC Theatre Coalition/Commons for the sustainability of US BIPOC Theatres—conducted a national Covid-19 pandemic survey with the UCLA Asian American Studies Program for BIPOC theatres’ and artists’ access to qualitative and quantitative data/research for their on-going recovery, resource building, and fundraising.
2024 Fichandler Finalist: Snehal Desai
Photo by Jeffrey Fiterman
Snehal Desai is Center Theatre Group’s (CTG) Artistic Director. He kicked off his first season this past fall with a record-breaking new production Green Day’s American Idiot Produced in Collaboration with Deaf West Theatre at the Mark Taper Forum which he also directed. Prior to joining CTG, Snehal was the Producing Artistic Director of East West Players. A Soros Fellow and the recipient of a Tanne Award, Desai was in the Inaugural Class of Theatre Communications Group’s (TCG) “Spark” Leadership Program and the Inaugural Recipient of the Drama League’s Classical Directing Fellowship. As an artistic leader, Snehal has sought to raise awareness on social issues that affect Angelenos through impactful and empowering storytelling. Desai has served on the boards of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (Caata), Theatre Communications Group (TCG), and Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts (LFCSA). He currently serves on the board of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT).