Oscar Nominated Filmmaker
Brings Burning in China Play
to CMC for Two Performances

The Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC will present two performances of Burning in China, a one-man play by writer Gary Moore, directed by five-time Academy Award nominee Caleb Deschanel, and starring actor Jeff LeBeau. Making its Los Angeles premier, the new play honors the 20th anniversary of student protests in Tianamen Square. Admission to the event is free and open to all, with performances at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25, at Pickford Auditorium.
In the inspiring new play by Gary Moore (Beaver Falls, Long Lankin's Curse, Abe Ascending), an American teacher goes to Shanghai with 100 copies of the Gettysburg Address in his suitcase, and finds among his grim and silent Chinese students a heart yearning for personal freedom and a government "of the people, by the people and for the people."
This presentation of Burning in China, directed by five-time Oscar nominee Caleb Deschanel (Being There, The Right Stuff, The Natural, Fly Away Home, The Passion of the Christ), celebrates the Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth (1809) and honors the 20th anniversary of the student protests in Tiananmen Square (1989).
"Burning in China is a compelling and strangely funny drama in the tradition of Swimming to Cambodia," says Robert Faggen the Barton Evans and H. Andrea Neves Professor of Literature and director of The Gould Center for Humanistic Studies. "It gives us a real lens into a turbulent, tragic moment and into the dreams of two cultures. Jeff LeBeau is funny and passionate. And it's an honor to have Caleb Deschanel, one of the best cinematographers and directors of our time, giving this shape on the stage. The Road to Inspiration Deschanel, who is a friend of Moore's, explained the play's origins during a recent televised interview. In 1989 after filming a commercial in China, Deschanel flew to Shanghai to visit Moore, and his wife, Susan. Moore was then teaching literature as an exchange professor, and the three friends spent time riding bicycles through Shanghai and exploring the coastal city's restaurants. A few months after Deschanel returned to America, the uprising in China's Tianamen Square broke, and "of course, all of us worried about Gary and Susan," Deschanel recalled.
Moore also returned to the States, and developed a talk about the experience, which eventually turned into a play. Deschanel and Moore then traveled back to China in 1991 to shoot some video.
"China has this wonderful idea of encouraging people to have freedom and democracy," Deschanel reflected, "but when students took that idea for themselves and started going out on the streets, (the government) became terrified, and that's when the crackdown happened I think a lot of people know about what happened in Tianamen Square, but they only know a little bit about the incidents at the endthey don't really know the evolution of it. And this play really gives you an understanding of it."
Actor Jeff LeBeau, who portrays Moore in the one-man performance, says the play is about a man who "isn't doing what he wants to in life. He has a dream of being a beat poeta rap opera artist, as he calls it, and instead he's a teacher. That element, right there, drew me to the project. I thought, How many people are doing jobs they don't want to, and have a dream inside?"
He says that although his character ends up teaching in China, "China ends up teaching him.
"He became very close to the people and to his students of course." LeBeau says. "A lot of them were involved in the uprisings, although not in Beijing, but in Shanghai."
Despite the serious subject matter, Deschanel says Burning in China is streaked with unexpected humor and comedytraits typical of very tense situations. "It's not a serious piece at all," he said. "It's actually really amazingly humorous."
"This is also," Faggen adds, "a drama about a professor and students colliding across a deep cultural divide while sensing a shared dream of democracy and humanity."
Deschanel, whose father was French, grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised in his mother's Quaker religion. While attending Johns Hopkins University in the early 1960s, he met and became good friends with future Academy Award-winning film editor and sound designer Walter Murch. The two then went on to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts before Deschanel graduated with an M.F.A degree from the AFI Conservatory in 1969.
Along with George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, he is an original member of the American Zoetrope production team. His first Oscar-nominated film for best cinematography was in 1983 for The Right Stuff, followed by a second nomination in 1984 for The Natural. He is also the father of actresses Emily and Zooey Deschanel.