Artistic and National Leadership
As playwright, director, artistic director, organizer, and visionary, Mr. Shiomi has had a major impact on the development of Asian American theatre regionally, nationally, and internationally. He was a founding member and the Artistic Director of Mu Performing Arts in Minnesota for 20 years, developing it into a major Asian American theater in the US. As a visionary he was a part of the development of Asian American theatre in San Francisco, Minnesota, and Philadelphia. And internationally he has had four productions of his plays in Tokyo, Japan.
As Artistic Director at Mu Performing Arts he mentored hundreds of artists, and produced scores of world premieres as well as Asian American classics. He selected and produced the early plays of such prominent national playwrights as Lauren Yee, Julia Cho and Michael Golamco and local writers such as Katie Ka Vang, Sun Mee Chomet, Katie Hae Leo and May Lee Yang. He also oversaw the development of many actors such as Eric Sharp, Sherwin Resurreccion, Katie Bradley, Sara Ochs and Alex Galick who now work regularly at theaters in the Twin Cities.
In 2015 he co-founded Full Circle Theater Company in Minneapolis/St. Paul, where he was Co-Artistic Director for a decade. In 2020, he completed a multi-year Doris Duke Charitable Foundation project in its Building Demand for the Arts Program working closely with InterAct Theatre to build an Asian American theater presence in Philadelphia. He is a founding member and served on the board of CAATA, the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists, the national service organization for Asian American theater. He is now a freelance playwright and a board member of Theater Mu.
