Inside Chinese Theater: Community and Artistry . Rao, Rao,**

University of Illinois Press

Inside Chinese TheaterCommunity and Artistry in Nineteenth-Century California and Beyond\nAuthor(s): Nancy Yunhwa Rao\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: University of Illinois Press, United States\nImprint: University of Illinois Press\nISBN-13: 9780252088636, 978-0252088636\nSynopsis\nIn the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese opera theater arrived as one of the significant performing art forms in California. Nancy Yunhwa Rao excavates and contextualizes the important history of Chinese Opera Theater, bringing to light the ways it became woven into the financial, political, social, and family life in California and beyond. \n\n Chinese opera theater found brick-and-mortar homes with San Francisco theaters like the Hing Chuen Yuen and the Donn Qui Yuen. But troupes had already followed Chinese immigrants to mining and railroad towns, and across the American West. As Chinese theater became part of California and San Francisco culture, popular Chinese actors advocated for their art alongside a.