FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: July 19, 2012
Mizel Museum presents “Mekong Joe” at The Aurora Fox Studio Theater
AURORA, Colo. – The Mizel Museum, in association with PT Projects, No Credits Productions and the Aurora Fox
Theater, will present actor Joe Wandell sharing his own amazing and true story in the theater presentation “Mekong
Joe,” beginning Aug. 10 at the Aurora Fox Arts Center’s Studio Theater, 9900 E. Colfax Ave.
Written and directed by Steve Stajich and co-produced by donnie l. betts, “Mekong Joe” will be presented Aug. 10 to
19 at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20 ($16 for groups of 10 or more; $17
seniors/students). For tickets and reservations, call 303-739-1970 or visit www.aurorafoxartscenter.org. For media
questions, call 720-318-9895.
In Vietnam in 1968, Tran Than Hai was born to a Vietnamese mother from an American GI father. Six years later, he
and his brother were two of the many children airlifted out of Saigon just hours before the fall of the city to the
Vietcong.
Adopted by a military couple in Baltimore, they named him Joe, and his older brother became Tony. An Amerasian
boy who grew up never feeling like he truly belonged, Joe landed in L.A. where he became an actor in film and TV
often cast as a Latino “gang banger.” Thirty years after the war, in a miraculous moment documented by NBC
Dateline , Joe and Tony are tearfully reunited with their birth mother in Vietnam—at the very airport where they
dodged sniper fire as children. “Mekong Joe” is a dynamic, moving and often funny story told from the human side of
war—all of it absolutely true and resonating with our shared humanity.
Wandell has been seen in numerous television productions including, “Ghost Whisperer,” “CSI: Miami,” “CSI: New
York,” “24,” “ER” and “General Hospital.” Film credits include, “Hollywood Homicide” (2003), “Wind River” (1998), and
“Volcano” (1997). Steve Stajich was a stand-up comic at Denver’s Comedy Works from 1985 to 2000 before moving
to Los Angeles. He has written for many TV shows including, “Reba”, “Daddio,” and “Politically Incorrect,” and was a
staff writer for Public Radio’s “The Prairie Home Companion” before focusing on works for the stage.
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Media Contact:
Patricia Wells
Aurora Fox Marketing Director
303-739-1971
pwells@auroragov.org