WERE YOU AT

PROM CENTER?

There was "The Buddy Holly Story" and the Ritchie Valens movie, "La Bamba." Now comes the documentary on the Winter Party Tour of 1959 in which Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash en route from Clear Lake, Iowa, to a concert in Fargo/Moorhead. Montreal filmmaker Sevan Garabedian is looking for folks who attended the tour's show at the Prom Center in St. Paul on Jan. 28, 1959. He has tracked down fans from the other 11 cities on the tour, but he's hoping to find more Prom Center-goers. He can be reached at sevan1@sympatico.ca. He and the other producers, Shawn Nagy of Duluth and Jim McCool of Madison, Wis., are hoping to premiere their documentary to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Feb. 3 crash. For more info: buddyhollyonline.com/wdp59.html.

JON BREAM

GETTING ON THE MAP

Mu Performing Arts inaugurates a program to recognize Asian-American artists at a gala Monday. Iris Shiraishi and David Henry Hwang will receive the awards at the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. Rick Shiomi, Mu's artistic director, said his organization hopes to honor one local and one national Asian-American artist each year.

Shiraishi has played a pivotal role in introducing Japanese taiko drumming to the Twin Cities, as an instructor and performer. Hwang is perhaps the best-recognized Asian-American playwright working in the country. His greatest success was "M Butterfly," which won the 1988 Tony for best play. He and Shiomi are longtime colleagues.

The awards are a harbinger of the national Asian American Theater Conference in June at the Guthrie Theater. Mu and Pangea World Theatre are co-hosts for that event.

Monday's gala begins at 6 p.m. (612-824-4804 or www.muperformingarts.org). MacPhail is at 501 S. 2nd St.

GRAYDON ROYCE