About the show…
Inspired by the true-life experience of George Takei, Allegiance tells one family’s multi-generational tale, recalled when a stranger presents Sam Kimura with a mysterious envelope that leads him back 60 years. He returns to a time when he and his sister, Kei, become adversaries in their efforts to save their family from the wrongful imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Both seek to honor their family and country, but Sam enlists in the U.S. army to prove the Kimura’s loyalty, while Kei joins those resisting the draft and fights for the rights of her people.
The Kimura family during the Broadway run of Allegience
In 2015, working in partnership with the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Arts and Special Projects, CHANGE Arts (then Inspire Change) created a full Allegiance curriculum for teachers using the show to teach this complicated moment in history, and interactive pre- and post-show engagement events for public school students in the Tri-State area . During it’s Broadway run, CHANGE sponsored over 3,000 NYC and Tri-State area students to see the show and participate in historical and performance-based workshops.
In 2021, CHANGE Arts partnered with Digital Theatre+ (an educational theatre streaming platform) to create an updated, time-stamped version of its original Broadway curriculum, focused on the live capture of Allegiance. This curriculum allows facilitators to stop the action of the show to explore more of its rich questions, making it into a 1 to 6+ class investigation.
In 2023, CHANGE, always wanting to live the value of its name, updated the curriculum once again for the UK premiere of Allegiance.
“Being exposed to the arts is transformational. Y
ou have single handedly transformed my
children’s experience of the world and they
will forever walk through it differently.”
— Rachel Shapiro Cooper, KIPP New Jersey: BOLD Academy, on seeing Allegiance