To create and present original, comedic entertainment based on Asian American experiences by uniting committed artists in a nurturing and collaborative environment.

In the beginning, there were no Asian American sketch comedy groups or many groups that wrote their own material who also produced them. Under the auspices of the Northwest Asian American Theatre in Seattle, David Kobayashi founded a group called 11:07 in 1995. It was a late night show that ran one night only in a month. The name came from the fact that the show was scheduled to start at 11:00pm, but the mostly Asian audience would consistently arrive a little late. David’s longtime friend, Roger Tang, joined him in this endeavor, and later in the summer of 1995, Leroy Chin joined under humorous circumstances.

Leroy, who was then known locally for such TV shows as Tea Talk was looking through the International Examiner, a local AA newspaper, and saw an article about the group and wanted to join the group. Meanwhile, David was looking for a new host for the upcoming show and Leroy’s name was suggested by someone else, a name that David had not heard of. Leroy called David and introduced himself, ‘Hi, this is Leroy Chin.’ David replied, ‘Leroy Chin? From Tea Talk?’ From then on, David, Roger and Leroy would form the core of the group.

In less than a year, it was clear to David that working under the auspices of the Northwest Asian American Theatre had its drawback, so 11:07’s ties to the theater were severed. An independent group was formed in the summer of 1996 and the group was looking for a new name. Leroy came up with the name during a trip with his ‘friend’ to the Washington Coast. He was in his car, writing letters on a car window with his finger. His ‘friend’ was ‘smoking’ and though Leroy did not inhale (well, maybe he did), he was inspired from the smoke. When he looked at the letters, he saw the letters O, P and M. He thought profoundly, ‘OPM. That sounds like opium.’

The group now had a new name. However, what would it stand for? It was decided that everyone would give out different reasons to create a mystery about the name. After awhile, this got old and the group looked at itself and wondered what they were all about. What was the group trying to do? It was trying to Open People’s Minds. From then on, it stuck.

In the summer of 1997, because of creative differences, David and Roger left the group and founded Pork-Filled Players (Seattle). Of the original founders, Leroy is the only one who remains. In 1999, OPM ventured into Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2001, Leroy moved to Los Angeles and brought OPM with him. In 2002, OPM added a stand-up comedy production to its lineup and began participating in sketch comedy festivals. All in all, OPM has performed in Seattle, Vancouver, Los Angeles and San Francisco, winning awards along the way: 2002 Best of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, 2002-2005 Best Box Office at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, and 1st place three years in a row at the 2002-2005 Vancouver SketchOff Competitions. OPM has also been a regularly invited guest performer at the L.A. Fest of Sketch for the past five years with Ewan Chung and Charles Kim as the headlining producers.