BIOGRAPHY

David Henry Hwang’s stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Golden Child, Chinglish, and The Dance and the Railroad, as well as the musicals Soft Power, Flower Drum Song, and Disney’s Broadway & international hits Aida and Tarzan. The 2024  revival of Yellow Face, starring Daniel Dae Kim, enjoyed a critically-acclaimed Tony Award-winning run on Broadway, and was broadcast on PBS’ Great Performances. Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist by Opera News, Hwang has written thirteen operas, including five with Philip Glass and four with Huang Ruo. Ainadamar, with music by Osvaldo Golijov, made its Metropolitan Opera debut in Fall 2024 and The Monkey King, with music by Huang Ruo, premiered at San Francisco Opera in November 2025. Hwang’s screenplays include David Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly, starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone, and he is currently penning an Anna May Wong biopic to star Gemma Chan as well as a musical feature film for Paramount Pictures. Hwang co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop music icon Prince and was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair from 2015-2019.

He  is a Tony Award winner and four-time nominee, a Grammy Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. A professor emeritus at Columbia University School of the Arts, he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2018 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. In 2025, Hwang received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild of America.

For speaking engagements please contact the Steven Barclay Agency.

For information about plays and other work, please contact CAA.

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