The Rosen Brewery Restaurant located just north of the heart of Koreatown in Los Angeles was this year’s location for the third annual Oscar Night party hosted by the Lodestone Theatre Ensemble. The restaurant’s high ceilings and huge TV screens on opposite sides gave the over 500 guests, mostly a twenty-something crowd, front row seats to the big show.

Spotted in the crowd were actors Tamlyn Tomita, Daniel Dae Kim, Dennis Dun, John Cho and cast members from MTV Film’s “Better Luck Tomorrow.”

Lodestone Theatre Ensemble is an Asian American theatre company with a vision for challenging stereotypes of Asian Americans as portrayed in the media. They started throwing an Oscar shindig three years ago as a way to celebrate the crafts of acting and moviemaking.

The irony was to be in a room full of Asian actors watching a show where no Asians could be seen. As Chil Kong, one of the founders and artistic directors of Lodestone, explained, “We’re watching a show where Asian Americans are excluded, but let’s just celebrate it. We need to support ourselves and create an infrastructure so that someday we will be there too.”

Kong’s message of support was genuine. The Oscar Night was also a benefit for the next Lodestone production, “When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes.”

The playwright, Angela Kang, a graduate of Occidental College in English and Theater, crafted a contemporary story around a Korean creation myth. While Kang is of Korean ancestry, this is the first time she’s written an Asian American themed work. The original play, co-produced with the Orphans Theater Company, is set to debut this summer in Los Angeles.

The Lodestone Oscar Night party is symbolic of the future of Asian Americans in entertainment. While the struggle for Asian American actors has always been for more, and better, representation on the screen, both big and small, Asian American culture is on the cusp of a breakout generation of talent.

This generation is the children of the Asian immigration wave of the seventies. They are maturing and possess their own ideas about the kinds of stories they want to tell and the way they want to see themselves portrayed in the media. With works like “Better Luck Tomorrow” and “When Tigers Smoked Long Pipes,” it might not be long before Asian Americans are participating in award shows instead of just watching them.