In this exclusive interview, the actor and producer reveals how the upcoming production came to be, his admiration for playwright David Henry Hwang and his onstage roots.
Daniel Dae Kim stood in a studio with playwright David Henry Hwang and director Leigh Silverman recording the audio version of Hwang’s play “Yellow Face” when the trio looked at each other and asked: “Why isn’t this on Broadway? Why hasn’t this been on Broadway?” Kim recalled.
First mounted in 2007 by Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, “Yellow Face” follows a playwright named DHH who protests the casting of non-Asian actor Jonathan Pryce as a Vietnamese character in “Miss Saigon.” As DHH’s protests largely go unanswered, he writes a play called “Face Value” about the “Miss Saigon” controversy and casts an actor who he believes is part Asian in one of the lead Asian roles — only to find out that the actor is fully white.