Chris Tashima
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| Chris Tashima | |
 Chris Tashima as Raymond Ding in "Americanese" |
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| Born | 1960 Cambridge, MA, USA |
| Official site | www.myspace.com/christashima |
| Notable roles | Raymond in "Americanese" Chiune 'Sempo' Sugihara in "Visas and Virtue" |
| Academy Awards | |
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| Live Action Short Film Won 1998: Visas and Virtue |
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| Emmy Awards | |
| Regional – Northern California Area Historical / Cultural – Program / Special Nominated 2006: Day of Independence |
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Chris Tashima is an award-winning American actor and director. He is a Sansei (third-generation Japanese American), born in 1960, in Cambridge, MA. He grew up in California, in Pasadena, Berkeley and Los Angeles. He attended UC Santa Cruz for two years, where he studied film production. He also attended UCLA, and took additional filmmaking courses at Visual Communications (VC). He started his acting career at East West Players in 1985. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
Tashima is co-founder of the entertainment company Cedar Grove Productions and co-Artistic Director of its theatre division, Cedar Grove Productions On Stage.
He is the son of U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima.
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[edit] Actor
Tashima stars as the romantic leading man opposite Joan Chen in Eric Byler's Americanese, released by IFC First Take in August 2007. His performance helped garner the film two awards at its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, including a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Cast. He has appeared in several other independent films, including Sherwood Hu's Lani Loa - The Passage (1998) with Angus Macfadyen, and Rea Tajiri's Strawberry Fields (1997) with Suzy Nakamura.
His stage credits include originating roles in Chay Yew’s A Language of Their Own (LA Weekly Theater Award for Ensemble Performance, shared with Noel Alumit, Anthony David and Dennis Dun) at the Celebration Theatre, Laurence Yep's Dragonwings at Berkeley Repertory Theatre (reprised at Seattle Children's Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, in Atlanta, and Syracuse Stage), Tim Toyama's Visas and Virtue, at the Road Theatre Company, and Wakako Yamauchi's The Memento at East West Players.
[edit] Director
Tashima won an Academy Award® for Live Action Short Film with producer Chris Donahue, for Visas and Virtue (1997), which he directed, co-wrote (adapting the one-act play by Toyama), and starred in. To produce Visas and Virtue, he co-founded Cedar Grove Productions in 1996, with Toyama and Donahue.
More recently, he directed, co-wrote and acted in Day of Independence (2003), a half-hour television special for PBS, produced by Lisa Onodera, which received a Regional Emmy® Nomination from the NATAS San Francisco/Northern California Chapter, in the category of Historical/Cultural — Program/Special.
His stage directing credits include several shows with the Grateful Crane Ensemble, most recenlty the world premiere of Soji Kashiwagi's Nihonmachi: The Place To Be, in San Francisco.
[edit] Professional
Tashima is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch, and belongs to the Directors Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Actors' Equity Association.
He is also a stage set designer. He won an Ovation Award for Best Set Design in a Smaller Theater, for Sweeney Todd, and a Drama-Logue Award for Scenic Design (shared with Christopher Komuro) for Into The Woods, both at East West Players.
[edit] Community
Honors:
- "Japanese American of the Biennium" (shared with Toyama) – Presented by National JACL
- "Bridge Builder" Asian American Leadership Award – Presented by A Magazine, New York, NY
- Humanitarian Award – Presented by The "1939" Club, Los Angeles CA
- Visionary Award – Presented by East West Players, Los Angeles CA
- Community Award – Presented by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago IL
- Special Recognition Award – Presented by the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, Los Angeles CA
