Out Loud in the Library! at Windward Community College presents playwright Daniel A. Kelin II performing his one-actor play Shipwreck’d on the Body Beautiful, or the Tats Dancing Man on Thursday, March 15, from 5:30–7 p.m. at Hale Laʻakea Library’s first floor. The event is free and open to the public.
The central character in Kelin’s play is James F. O’Connell or “J.O.,” a one-time sailor turned vaudeville/circus performer. He travels the country exhibiting his exotic “painted body” and entices his audience with song and dance from Ireland and Pohnpei. J.O. relays his adventures of being shipwrecked on the Pacific island of Pohnpei. His story is of an outsider trying to fit into a culture that he finds both strange and amazing.
Kelin has directed, acted in and written plays performed in Asia, the Pacific and across the U.S. He has earned fellowships with Theatre for Young Audiences/USA and the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America, and was the founding director of Cabaret Tiki, a playwright collective. His play The Musical (Mis)Adventures of Goopy and Bagha was honored in Arizona and performed in South India. Sing a Porpoise Home won the Aurand Harris Playwriting Award. Donnie Q: Knight of the Third Grade was winner of the Old Miner’s Children’s Playwriting Contest. Honolulu Theatre for Youth has produced many of his plays, including Keiko and Louie: Best Best Friends (Mostly) and …and the people spoke music, which earned two Rockefeller grants and tour to its place of origin, the Marshall Islands.
Out Loud in the Library! is a literary and music event celebrating the rich intersection of words and music by local artists, and is meant to inspire and encourage students and the community to find their own creative voice through writing, reading, poetry, music and the spoken word.
For more information, contact English instructor and Out Loud in the Library! coordinator Susan St. John at (808) 236-9226 or via email.
—By Bonnie Beatson
