The tale of love and sacrifice set against the chaos of the closing days of the Vietnam War told in the musical \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d carries added meaning for two cast members in the Western Playhouse production, which runs July 4-13 at Missouri Western State University. It\u2019s more than a show; it\u2019s also a glimpse of what their family history may have been like. Vi Tran, who plays the Engineer, and Cody Wilson, who plays Thuy, both say \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d is a touching reminder of their heritage.<\/p>\n
Sea Salt and Wheat Fields<\/strong><\/p>\n Vi Tran\u2019s parents left post-war Vietnam when he was about a year old, landing in a southeast Asia refugee camp. His career as a performer began as a toddler in the refugee camp, with other refugees frequently sharing what food they could spare with him. His mother\u2019s extended family left the refugee camp for Australia, but Australia was no longer accepting refugees when his immediate family was ready to leave.<\/p>\n \u201cMy folks said \u2018we just want a new start, just let us be farmers somewhere,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cSo the officials at the refugee camp said \u2018well, we\u2019ve got an opening in America; there\u2019s farmland in Kansas.\u2019\u201d So, when he was about three years old, his family relocated to southwest Kansas. \u201cI like to consider myself equal parts sea salt and wheat fields,\u201d he said. He\u2019s awestruck by the risks his family took to create a better life for their children.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always intellectually understood it, it\u2019s part of my family\u2019s oral history, and I find it really remarkable,\u201d he said. \u201cIn particular, I think about my sister a lot, because she was eight years old, nine years old at that time, so she remembers everything about that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n Tran said performing in \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d has given him a deeper appreciation for what his parents went through.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just made a choice and said \u2018there\u2019s no way that our kids have a future here, so we\u2019ve got to make a move, and we\u2019ll risk everything,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what the crux of this show is about: these characters set up against impossible odds, and seeing them trying to find a solution, trying to find their own way out.\u201d<\/p>\n Tran thinks that \u201cMiss Saigon,\u201d like all good theater, illuminates something you might not have noticed before.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s taking a very dark time in human history and illuminating all the complications that were there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s fun, it\u2019s exciting, there\u2019s big spectacle and production numbers, but then there\u2019s also the rawness of human emotion, loss and tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n Tran now lives in Kansas City, Mo., where he has performed at the Starlight Theatre, the Unicorn Theatre, the Coterie and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, among other venues.<\/p>\n Saigon to Plum Run<\/strong><\/p>\n As a toddler, Cody Wilson\u2019s mother was in an orphanage near Saigon toward the end of the war. One of the American soldiers assigned to guard the orphanage frequently entertained the children by taking them out for Jeep rides. Nearing the end of his tour of duty, he became particularly attached to the little girl who would grow up to become Wilson\u2019s mother. One day, after taking her out for a ride, they returned to find the orphanage had been bombed. The only thing he found in the wreckage was a partially burned birth certificate. The soldier stayed an extra six months to get immigration papers for the child, and then brought her home. He and his wife adopted her and raised her in the tiny community of Plum Run, W.Va., where Wilson was later born and raised.<\/p>\n Wilson says because his mother left Vietnam at such a young age and with no knowledge of her family, she couldn\u2019t respond to questions he had about his heritage as he grew up.<\/p>\n \u201cMy grandfather had passed, so he couldn\u2019t answer me, and this was one of those wars that a lot of things stayed over in Vietnam, so my grandmother couldn\u2019t answer me. I had to find a lot of information on my own,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I was cast (in \u2018Miss Saigon\u2019), I took it as an opportunity, a door to open to get back to my roots. I started doing research, I started understanding more, started connecting more, and there\u2019s a sense of pride.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson says the show is very heartbreaking to him, because the desperate struggle portrayed on stage could have been his mother\u2019s life. He is particularly moved by the song \u201cKim\u2019s Nightmare,\u201d which features Vietnamese citizens pleading with American soldiers to take them along as they evacuate the embassy, or to at least take their children.<\/p>\n \u201cI got chills,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cWhat if my family was there? What if my mom was one of the kids they were pleading to take? For a family to want some stranger to take their child away from them, to a country that is not their own, how bad does the situation have to be?\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson is a senior theater student at West Virginia University.<\/p>\n For more information about the Western Playhouse production of \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d or to purchase tickets, visit www.westernplayhouse.com.<\/p>\n Missouri Western State University is a comprehensive regional university providing a blend of traditional liberal arts and professional degree programs. The university offers student-centered, high quality instruction that focuses on experience-based learning, community service, and state-of-the-art technology. Missouri Western is located in St. Joseph, Mo., and is committed to the educational, economic, cultural and social development of the region it serves. Visit www.missouriwestern.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The tale of love and sacrifice set against the chaos of the closing days of the Vietnam War told in the musical \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d carries added meaning for two cast members in the Western Playhouse production, which runs July 4-13 at Missouri Western State University. It\u2019s more than a show; it\u2019s also a glimpse of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9514,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions\/9514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}