Growing display of ‘Allegiance’

By the time a show opens on Broadway, it has gone through a long and arduous development process that begins with a playwright’s concept and continues through numerous workshops, staged readings and full-scale performances in other cities.

"Allegiance: A New American Musical," an original musical about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, moves closer to Broadway this month with its official premiere at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

The show was conceived by actor George Takei and developed by Lorenzo Thione and composer-lyricist Jay Kuo.

Takei was 5 years old when American citizens of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast were interned along with resident aliens following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The government allowed them to take only what they could carry in a suitcase. Everything else — furniture, cars, homes, businesses, farms — had to be disposed of for whatever price they could get.

Takei stars as embittered camp survivor Sam Kimura, whose present-day memories of the camps open and close the story. Telly Leung, seen in the recent Broadway revival of "Godspell" and in a recurring role as a Dalton Academy Warbler in "Glee," plays Sam in the flashbacks that provide most of the story. Broadway veteran Lea Salonga appears in the flashback scenes as Sam’s sister.

A private producers’ audition presented here by Takei, Salonga, Thione, Leung and Kuo in 2010 raised about 25 percent of the financing needed to present it in San Diego.

Leung returned to Honolulu recently and made time for a quick update on the show.

Question: You’ve been working toward an official full-scale public premiere for several years. How’s it feel to reach this point?

Answer: It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been workshopping the show and doing developmental readings and workshops of the show for about two years now, and, gosh, the show has come such a long way and made so many wonderful changes.

Q: What’s one of the best things about the experience for you?

A: Being able to use George as a resource and go, "George, what was that experience like? What was it like in the camps? What did it smell like? What did it look like?" has really brought the piece to another level for me as an actor in the way I connect to it.

Q: Many in Hawaii grow up with the story of the internment of Japanese-Americans. Do you think this will be "new material" for mainstream theater audiences?

A: Growing up in New York public schools, (the internment) wasn’t something that was taught and talked about, and it’s so interesting coming to Hawaii where, because of the powerful impact of the Japanese community here, it is something that resonates every day. Even in this generation of children, they know about it. Not the case when I was a kid in New York City, so I was really moved when I first became attached to the project — meeting George Takei and knowing that he had lived that experience himself.

Q: What are your hopes for the show?

A: As an actor what you want to do is affect an audience and touch them in a way that they leave better people or at least having a better understanding of their world and wanting to be better people, and I feel like "Allegiance" has the power to do that if we do it right. … It is my hope and it is my dream that this show can be played on as many stages as possible — Broadway, the West End (in London) and around the world.

"Allegiance: A New American Musical" will be performed now through Oct. 21 at Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. For tickets and information, call 619-234-5623 or visit www.TheOldGlobe.com.