Marlan Warren

Marlan Warren is a playwright, theater producer, and director. She produced, directed, and acted in her one-act play about Yuri Kochiyama and the women of the Japanese American Internment, "Bits of Paradise: Kochiyama's Crusaders" at Rogue Machine Theatre in Hollywood, CA (2017). The play was a revised version of "Bits of Paradise" which showcased at The Marsh Theatre in San Francisco (2008), also directed and produced by Warren. Her short play, "Chasing Sangha" was included in Athena Cats 10 Minute Play Festival as a staged reading in Santa Monica (2017). In 1992, her Women's Self-Defense Musical, "Hallelujah Whiplash!" was showcased at the Marquis Public Theatre in San Diego.

While in high school in Ft. Myers, Florida, Warren formed a theater company with classmate, Gus Kaikkonen (now artistic director of Peterborough Players), where they performed the classics "The Crucible" and "Spoon River Anthology" as actors and co-directors.

As an actress, Warren performed in plays in Boston, Ottawa (Canada), and Chicago, finally focusing on directing. She directed Gary Houston's "Mighty Aphrodite" for Pary Productions at The Theater Building.

Warren has her B.F.A. in film writing from University of Southern California. Her screenplay, "Midsummer Night Cowboy" was sold to Shadow Hill Entertainment and died a horrible death in "Development."

She is also the scriptwriter for the award-winning educational children's series, "Reading Planet," produced by Study Sources Unlimited and directed by Pawel Kuczynski.

Warren collaborated as writer/producer/editor with Chuck Workman and Pawel Kuczynski on "Reunion"--a short nonfiction film that contrasts her high school reunion in Florida and her then-husband's in Poland. The film was the official selection at AFI International Video Festival (1995); Santa Barbara Film Festival (1996); Palm Beach International Film Festival (1996); Denver International Film Festival (1996); Documental Film Series, Santa Monica (2000); and Surprise International Short Film Festival, Taiwan (1997). In 2009, Warren began producing the documentary, "What did you do in the War, Mama?: Kochiyama's Crusaders," in the Bay Area with producer/director, Chong Lee. In 2014, Warren took over the film as both producer and director for the Los Angeles Unit. The film features writings from correspondence between Japanese American women incarcerated behind the barbed wire of World War II "internment camps" and Japanese American soldiers, during a morale-boosting correspondence campaign led by human rights activist and future Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Yuri Kochiyama. It grew out of her play, "Bits of Paradise."