Cyndy Fujikawa is a Los Angeles based theatre artist and filmmaker who recently directed The Spy Who Went Into Rehab at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival starring FOTW veteran Mike McShane. She received her MFA from the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco where she was a founding member of the ACT based Encore Theatre Company. Her passion is bringing biographical and autobiographical work to life. She is the director/producer of Ninety Minutes Later, an award-winning documentary film about the fatal 2018 police shooting of actress Vanessa Marquez, for which she received a 2024 grant from Eastside Arts Initiative.As a playwright, she was commissioned by Cornerstone Theatre Co. to adapt the cherished memoir, Farewell to Manzanar, for the stage. She is perhaps best known for telling her father's story (actor and former Manzanar incarceree Jerry Fujikawa) in the one woman play, Old Man River, which was later adapted into an award-winning documentary film. Cyndy is a two two-time Van Lier Fellowship recipient for her work autobiographical work at legendary Mabou Mines and New York Theatre Workshop.
Paul Codiga started writing and producing theater in the early 1980s in San Francisco. The talented young folks who loved performing hung out in The Mission, where they lived on five dollars a day in food, booze, and weed. He helped start Dude Theater, ran Intersection for the Arts for almost a decade, and saw epic theater at Berkeley Rep, the Magic, and Theatre Artaud. Paul moved to LA to see if he could get into TV & Film, where he caught a huge break when his brother, David, introduced him to Don Tardino. A badass who got him into the Union and to Locations. Over the past 24 years, Paul has worked on The Big Lebowski, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, CSI: MIAMI, Spartan, Sex and the City, Bad Santa, and is currently on Bad Monkey. He’s grateful for the sixth year of our humble backyard theater festival. Thank you Cyndy, Peter, Dash, & Viv.
Just to get this out of the way, here is how Peter’s last name is pronounced: ch (chin), en, us. Kind of like a sneeze… Peter is a freelance writer, director, actor, teacher, producer and runs The Mile High Theater. He helped produce and co-wrote the feature film In Search of Fellini with Nancy Cartwright. Theatrically, Peter was a founder of The Mountain Shakespeare Festival in Pine Mountain Club as well as Artists Without Nets in Los Angeles and Spectrum Theater Company in San Francisco. He has performed at the Oregon, Berkeley and Kern Shakespeare Festivals as well as Portland Center Stage and has directed in many locations.
