Bainbridge Performing Arts has named Keiko Green as the recipient of the 2018 Amy Award for Emerging Artists. Green was honored at BPA’s Encore event on May 15, 2018.

Keiko Green is a Bainbridge Island-based playwright and performer. She was a 2016 Core Acting Company Member of ACT Theatre and a member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s 2015 – 2017 Resident Writers’ Group. “I’m interested in racial and gender parity onstage and onscreen,” says Green. “I hope to create work that pushes boundaries yet is accessible to everyone.”

Keiko’s original work focuses on marginalized voices, specifically changing the narrative to centralize characters that are usually plot devices. In 2017, her play Nadeshiko won the Gregory Award for Outstanding New Play, as well as landing on the Honorable Mentions for the national Kilroys List, which lists the top underproduced plays written by women. She is a Finalist for both the 2018 – 2019 Many Voices and Jerome Fellowships at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, as well as a Semi-Finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation for her play Ballad of the White Tiger. Keiko has also had several world premieres at Seattle’s beloved Annex Theatre, among other venues, like Island Theater’s Ten-Minute Play Festival and NW Actors Lab’s One Act Festival on Bainbridge Island.

Keiko delivered a stirring speech at the event to celebrate her receipt of the Amy Award. She said, in part,

“I am so deeply humbled to join the wonderful group of artists that have received this award. Thank you to David, Caren, and of course Miss Amy Anderson — so many people have reached out to me to tell me about her. Thank you to everyone who has done so… When you see how a piece of theatre makes someone feel seen for the first time, gives someone an unexpected emotion for the day, or makes someone relate to someone from a completely different background, you know you’re doing something right. Muscles relax, brains and heart open up. Art creates empathy — something that is disappearing in our world. Art creates empathy. Art can change the world. If we let it.”

We couldn’t agree more. Cheers, Keiko!