David Henry Hwang, Leigh Silverman, Francis Jue, and Daniel Dae Kim (Ghina Fawaz)
David Henry Hwang's play, starring Tony nominees Daniel Dae Kim and Francis Jue, is streaming now on PBS.
While Tony Award voters have to go to the theatre to see this season's Tony-nominated shows, there is one production they can watch from their homes: Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang—which is currently up for three Tonys, including Best Revival of a Play. The play, which closed last fall after a limited engagement, has been filmed by PBS and can be streamed until June 30 on PBS.org. For the industry folks who would rather see it in a theatre, Hwang and the show's stars have been hosting a number of screenings of the Yellow Face film.
At a May 18 screening at the Whitby Hotel, which also featured popcorn in Yellow Face containers, Hwang introduced the film by noting the play's historical significance: "I'm very grateful to the [Tony] nominators and everybody, because this is the first play in Broadway history in which East Asians are being centered as Americans." Indeed, musicals and plays set in Asia are fairly common on Broadway, but works about Asians living in America aren't as prevalent (though Hwang previously worked on a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, set in San Francisco).
