On Thursday, November 20th, The Parks celebrate a Korean/Japanese-American Thanksgiving, with some zany results on ABC’s Dr. Ken. Tune in at 8:30pm. The episode will air again on Thursday, November 26th (10:30-11:00 p.m., ET/PT).
“Thanksgiving Culture Clash” – Molly rebels and gets a Japanese tattoo, which spirals Ken and Allison into having a cultural face-off when Allison claims she is more Japanese than Ken is Korean. At a holiday dinner, they push their traditional dishes on their guests, while Dave documents the Thanksgiving events for a school project. Also, Julie, fearful of being alone due to a recent heartbreak, invites the office over to her place – but Damona and Clark try finding a way to leave early so they can make it to their other Thanksgiving plans.
Dr. Ken stars Ken Jeong as Dr. Ken, Suzy Nakamura as Allison, Tisha Campbell Martin as Damona, Jonathan Slavin as Clark, Kate Simses as Julie, Albert Tsai as Dave, Krista Marie Yu as Molly, and Dave Foley as Pat.
Guest cast: Dana Lee as D.K., Alexis Rhee as In-Sook, Jeanne Sakata as Pam, Clyde Kusatsu as Jerry.
“Thanksgiving Culture Clash” was written by Mike O’Connell and directed by Ken Whittingham. Executive producers are Mike Sikowitz, John Davis and John Fox. Ken Jeong and Mike O’Connell are co-executive producers. “Dr. Ken” is produced by Sony Pictures Television and ABC Studios.
For more information on Dr. Ken, visit www.abc.go.com/shows/dr-ken.
Jeanne Sakata is a renowned actress whose acclaimed “cross-gender” portrayal of Master Hua in Chay Yew’s RED at East West Players earned her the LA Ovation Award for Best Lead Actress. She recently starred as Masha in the LAPC Theatre production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and appeared in A Noise Within’s (ANW) production of Figaro.
She has performed across the country at The Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, La Jolla Playhouse, South Coast Rep, American Conservatory Theater, Northlight Theatre, Intiman Theatre, Berkeley Rep, A Contemporary Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Syracuse Stage and the Arizona Theatre Company, and developed new works with The Sundance Institute Theatre Lab and the Ojai Playwrights Festival. Screen credits include “NCIS Los Angeles,” “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns,” “Desperate Housewives,” “ER,” “Threat Matrix,” “Line of Fire,” “Presidio Med,” “American Family,” “Numb3rs,” John Ridley’s “I Got You,” the MOW’s “The Reading Room,” “Hiroshima,” “Consensual Relations,” and the feature films The Babymakers, XXX2: State of the Union and American Fusion.
Sakata will received the 2016 LEE MELVILLE AWARD for Outstanding Contribution to the Los Angeles Theater Community in 2016. She has received the Los Angeles’ Pacific American Friends of Theatre Outstanding Artist Award, the Monaco Charity Film Festival Best Actress Award (Adultolescence), Stage Scene Outstanding Performance mention (Master Class), Entertainment Today Best Supporting Actress Award (A Winter People), and the Drama-Logue Outstanding Performance Award (The Maids. www.jeannesakata.com
Her critically acclaimed play Hold These Truths (formerly Dawn’s Light: The Journey of Gordon Hirabayashi), had its world premiere in 2007 at Los Angeles’ East West Players, co-presented by the UCLA Department of Asian American Studies, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and the Japanese American National Museum. In its 2012 New York premiere at the Epic Theatre Ensemble, Hold These Truths opened to unanimous rave reviews from The New Yorker, The Washington Post/API, and many other theatre critics, resulting in a Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance, and a subsequent Hawaiian premiere, co-presented by Daniel Dae Kim and the Honolulu Theatre For Youth. Developed by the Lark Play Development Center and the New York Theatre Workshop, it has also been performed at Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion with Silk Road Rising/Millennium Park, the University of California at Riverside and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where it served as the inspiration and theatrical centerpiece of the civil rights symposium Civil Liberties, National Security and the Legacies of the Japanese Removal and Incarceration. With the East West Players Theatre For Youth program in 2008 and 2010, the play has twice toured high schools and junior high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Hold These Truths is now part of the Jeanne Sakata Collection in the Library of Congress Playwrights Archive, Asian American Pacific Islander Collection, Washington DC. (www.holdthesetruths.info, www.facebook.com/holdthesetruths), www.holdthesetruths.info)
Lia Chang is an award-winning filmmaker, a Best Actress nominee, a photographer, and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia has appeared in the films Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and Hide and Seek. She is profiled in FebOne1960.com Blog, Jade Magazine and Playbill.com.
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