A Conversation with Velina Hasu Houston
The prolific playwright opens up about herself, her work, and her journey.
With Hero Theatre’s production of Tea coming up this spring, I had the honor of interviewing playwright Velina Hasu Houston about her heartbreaking and thought-provoking play. Houston –who is also a Distinguished Professor and Director of Dramatic Writing at the USC School of Dramatic Arts — shares her inspiration behind Tea and how her background informs her work.
You have had such a long and illustrious career. Can you take us through a bit of your journey?
My journey as a writer began when I was five years old. At that time, I told my mother that I was going to be a writer. She told me that immigrants do not get to be artists, that such things had to wait a generation. This response made me even more determined to become a writer, not to prove my mother wrong, but to make her proud. For many, many years, she was, but she suffered a brain injury in 1991 that compromised her mental cognition. While that impairment has worsened over time, I am happy to say that my mother is still alive at ninety-one years of age. She has been my greatest muse as well as the greatest love of my life.
I began my writing creatively and in communications. I wrote poetry, and journalistic pieces for…
