west end premiere

On Sale Soon!

At the grand age of 85, George Takei will make his West End debut in Allegiance, an incredible story of resilience, based on his early experiences. After a Broadway debut in 2015, Allegiance, a powerful musical detailing life for Japanese Americans following Pearl Harbour, comes to the West End to enlighten and educate us about this often-forgotten chapter in U.S history. Telly Leung makes the jump from Broadway with Takei, with direction and choreography from Tara Overfield Wilkinson.

What is the story?

In December 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. The then president, FDR issued the infamous Executive Order 9066 in response, which effectively declared civil war upon its Japanese-American citizens who resided on the Pacific Coast. This group was treated with hysteria and fear because they shared the same ancestry as the Japanese bombers. As a result, they were ordered from their homes to desolate, isolated prison camps for months (and in some cases years) and made to prove their loyalty to the United States by living and working in near-slavery conditions.

Allegiance follows one such family who is uprooted forcefully from their home and headed to one such internment camp in Wyoming. Their lives are torn apart as they each come to terms with the situation and learn the power of redemption, rebellion, and forgiveness toward their captors. The story is recounted to a journalist by the now-elderly Sam Otsuka, on the 60th anniversary of the Pearl Harbour attacks. Sam and his sister Kei must balance loyalty to their Japanese family with allegiance to the country where they now live, with mounting pressures of starvation and heavy-handed containment.

Did you know?

Now considered one of homeland America's darkest moments, reparations for the treatment of her Japanese-American citizens were finally addressed in 1952 when Executive Order 9066 was repealed by President Ford, but it wasn't until 1982 that a commission ruled the illegality of the order, and apologized to the survivors, as well as offering compensation.