AATE and the Dramatist Guild Foundation Co-Host Playwrighting Symposium With David Henry Hwang / December 11, 2020 by David Hwang

“Everyone’s a Playwright: Writing as a Teaching Tool and Expressive Engine” will take place On February 6th and 7th.

This two-day symposium will present a keynote led by playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor David Henry Hwang. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the most-produced living American opera librettist, whose works have been honored with two Grammy Awards, co-wrote the Gold Record Solo with the late pop icon Prince, and worked from 2015-2019 as a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair.

Read more at Broadway World

#ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence Nationwide Reading Premieres in Multiple Cities / December 4, 2020 by David Hwang

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#ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence will premiere on December 14, 2020.

Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company has announced its participation in the Nationwide Reading of the seven winning plays of #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence, a national short play competition for middle and high school students. On December 14, 2020 at 7pm -- the 8-year remembrance of the shootings at Sandy Hook -- the winning titles will be performed at Mildred's Umbrella and over 50 other theatres and schools across the country and abroad.

A panel of nationally-recognized dramatists - Lauren Gunderson, Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan, Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, and Karen Zacarías - selected the plays out of 184 submissions from twenty-three states and three countries in #ENOUGH's call for teens to write 10-minute plays that confront the issue of gun violence.

Read more at Broadway World

Columbia University School of Art Faculty and Alumni Nominated for 2021 Grammy Awards / December 4, 2020 by David Hwang

Music’s biggest night will feature the works of many Columbia faculty and alumni. The Recording Academy announced the 63rd Annual Grammy Award nominations last week, which recognize annual achievements in the music industry.

Soft Power by Associate Professor David Henry Hwang and Barnard alumna Jeanine Tesori ’83 is nominated in the Best Musical Theater Album category for their Off-Broadway high concept musical. Hwang and Tesori share the nomination as Lyricist and Lyricist and Composer respectively. The show was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and 11 Drama Desk Award nominations. Hwang’s musical includes a self titled character who is attacked and stabbed while walking on the streets of Brooklyn. After being rushed to the hospital, the character hallucinates a Chinese musical based on current events circulating through the media. The musical is a fantasia of sorts, with a version of the United States of America where everyone is blond and brandishes a gun and even includes Hilary Clinton riding on a Big Mac. The Off Broadway production, which played the Public Theatre in 2019, was directed by Adjunct Assistant Professor Leigh Silverman.

Arizona Students Playing Key Roles In #ENOUGH: Plays To End Gun Violence / December 1, 2020 by David Hwang

Nine students from the Tucson area, Mesa and Laveen participating in Arizona Theatre Company's ATCteen program are playing key roles in the digital premiere of seven winning plays from #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence, a national short play competition for middle and high school students.

Arizona Theatre Company (ATC) is one of five companies across the nation collaborating in the program. The winning plays will be available on the streaming platform Broadway on Demand (BOD) beginning Dec. 14, the eight-year remembrance of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The digital premieres can be viewed for free. Registration is required at broadwayondemand.com.

ATCteen students will perform a staged reading of Debkanya Mitra's play, Malcolm. Malcolm tells the story of a Black folk musician whose quest through the Eastern Seaboard to find himself was violently interrupted and paints an evocative picture of the connection shared among strangers through a single life.

A panel of nationally-recognized dramatists - Lauren Gunderson, America's most produced living playwright (Silent Sky, The Heath); Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, who the Oscar for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for Moonlight; Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, who won the Tony Award for Best Play for M. Butterfly; and Karen Zacariís (Native Gardens), winner of ATC's National Latinx Playwright Award -- selected the plays out of 184 submissions from 23 states and three countries in #ENOUGH's call for teens to write 10-minute plays that confront the issue of gun violence.

Read more at Broadway World

Soft Power, Jagged Little Pill, American Utopia & More Earn Grammy Nominations / December 1, 2020 by David Hwang

Nominations were announced on November 24 for the 63rd annual Grammy Awards. The Tony-nominated musical Jagged Little Pill, American Utopia, Soft Power, Little Shop of Horrors, Amélie and The Prince of Egypt are in the running for Best Musical Theater Album, with credits as follows:

Soft Power
Francis Jue, Austin Ku, Alyse Alan Louis and Conrad Ricamora, principal soloists; Matt Stine, producer (David Henry Hwang, lyricist; Jeanine Tesori, composer and lyricist).

Amélie
Audrey Brisson, Chris Jared, Caolan McCarthy and Jez Unwin, principal soloists; Michael Fentimen, Sean Patrick Flahaven, Barnaby Race & Nathan Tysen, producers (Nathan Tysen, lyricist; Daniel Messe, composer and lyricist)

American Utopia
David Byrne, principal soloist; David Byrne, producer (David Byrne, composer and lyricist)

Jagged Little Pill
Kathryn Gallagher, Celia Rose Gooding, Lauren Patten and Elizabeth Stanley, principal soloists; Neal Avron, Pete Ganbarg, Tom Kitt, Michael Parker, Craig Rosen and Vivek J. Tiwary, producers (Glen Ballard and Alanis Morissette, lyricists)

Little Shop of Horrors
Tammy Blanchard, Jonathan Groff and Tom Alan Robbins, principal soloists; Will Van Dyke, Michael Mayer, Alan Menken and Frank Wolf, producers (Alan Menken, composer; Howard Ashman, lyricist)

The Prince of Egypt
Christine Allado, Luke Brady, Alexia Khadime and Liam Tamne, principal soloists; Dominick Amendum and Stephen Schwartz, producers (Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist)

Malmö Opera to World Premiere Philip Glass’ ‘Circus Days and Nights’ / November 28, 2020 by David Hwang

The Malmö Opera has announced a production of Philip Glass’ “Circus Days and Nights,” in collaboration with the circus company Cirkus Cirkör.

The work, which is set to world premiere on May 29, 2021, will open in Malmö before heading on tour throughout Asia, the United States, and Europe. The libretto is by David Henry Hwang and Tilde Björfors; Björfors will also direct the production.

Soft Power, Little Shop of Horrors, Jagged Little Pill, More Earn 2021 Grammy Nominations / November 28, 2020 by David Hwang

A record six cast recordings are up for Best Musical Theater Album at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards.

In most years since the category was first presented in 1959, there have been five nominees; this year marks the first with an expanded lineup of six titles.

Soft Power (Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording)
Principal soloists: Francis Jue, Austin Ku, Alyse Alan Louis, and Conrad Ricamora
Producer: Matt Stine
Lyricist: David Henry Hwang
Composer-lyricist: Jeanine Tesori

Teen Plays Tackling Gun Violence to Stream on Broadway Platform / November 14, 2020 by David Hwang

Seven plays about gun violence will premiere on Broadway on Demand on the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre.

NEW YORK CITY: #ENOUGH Plays to End Gun Violence, in partnership with Broadway on Demand, Playscripts, and the Dramatists Guild, has announced the selection of seven plays by teen playwrights for its short-play competition. On Dec. 14, the eight-year anniversary of the shootings at Sandy Hook, the winning titles will premiere on the streaming platform Broadway on Demand and be made available for free for organizations to stage readings locally.

The seven winners are Adelaide Fisher’s Ms. Martin’s Malaise, Eislinn Gracen’s Guns in Dragonland, Azya Lyons’ Togetha, Debkanya Mitra’s Malcolm, Olivia Ridley’s Ghost Gun, Sarah Schecter’s Hullabaloo, and Elizabeth Shannon’s Loaded Language. In addition a digital premiere on Broadway on Demand, the plays will be published and licensed through Playscripts. The writers will receive guild membership and craft training through the Dramatists Guild’s Young Dramatist Initiative. The selected works were chosen by a jury including Lauren Gunderson, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Robert Schenkkan, David Henry Hwang, and Karen Zacarías, who considered 184 submissions from 23 states.

David Henry Hwang’s ‘M. Butterfly’ Followup: ‘M. Turkey’ / November 2, 2020 by David Hwang

The goal: a comedy about mistaken racial identity inspired by protests over “Miss Saigon.” The result: a backstage farce that never got to opening night.

David Henry Hwang’s “Face Value” arrived on Broadway on March 9, 1993. It left five days later. For Gina Torres, an actress in that production, the news came as a relief. “Because we were pushing that stone uphill for a good long time,” she said.

“Face Value,” Hwang’s follow-up to the Tony Award-winning “M. Butterfly,” was a farce — and not entirely in the ways that Hwang and Jerry Zaks, the play’s director, intended.

In 1990, Hwang, the first Asian-American to win a playwriting Tony, joined members of Actor’s Equity in objecting to the casting of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian character in the Broadway production of “Miss Saigon.” Equity rejected the casting.

Ode to a Butterfly: On the Transformative Symbol, Its Failure in ‘Antebellum,’ and Its Power in ‘Possessor Uncut’ / October 19, 2020 by David Hwang

Thou winged blossom! liberated thing!
What secret tie binds thee to other flowers
Still held within the garden’s fostering?
Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight and be like thee
Irrevocably free,
Hovering at will o’er their parental bowers?
—“Ode to a Butterfly,” Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The butterfly has long served as a shorthand way of communicating change and growth. The transformative nature of how a caterpillar emerges from a cocoon as a physically different being, now with antennae and wings and totally different colors, has become a symbol in a variety of genres. Think of the play M. Butterfly, and how author David Henry Hwang raises questions about gender performance and sexual desire.

David Henry Hwang, Judith Light, David Hyde Pierce, José Rivera added to "In Our America" Concert; Broadway for Biden team / October 19, 2020 by David Hwang

Tony winners Judith Light, David Hyde Pierce, Leslie Uggams, LaChanze, Karen Ziemba, and more Broadway stars have joined Broadway for Biden’s In Our America: A Concert for the Soul of Our Nation lineup. David Henry Hwang, José Rivera, Kate Rigg, Jacob Burns, and Maggie Cassella have joined the writing team.

Also newly added to the lineup are Terence Archie, Tala Ashe, Jeannette Bayardelle, Alex Boniello, Layla Capers, Nikki Renée Daniels, Quentin Earl Darrington, Sheila Kay Davis, Rogelio Douglas Jr., Matt Doyle, Michael Emerson, Celia Rose Gooding, Jin Ha, James Harkness, Ben Harney, William Jackson Harper, Aisha Jackson, Jawan M. Jackson, Marcus Paul James, Isaiah Johnson, Justin Keyes, Hailey Kilgore, Quentin Oliver Lee, John Leguizamo, Telly Leung, Selenis Leyva, Sky Lakota Lynch, Taylor Mac, Sahr Ngaujah, Okieriete Onaodowan, Larry Owens, Fiona Morgan Quinn, Jelani Remy, Conrad Ricamora, Lauren Ridloff, Nicolette Robinson, Dee Roscioli, Walter Russell III, George Salazar, Elizabeth Judd Salinas, Rashidra Scott, Ryan Shaw, Jimmy Smits, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Jayden Theopile, Nasia Thomas, Skye Dakota Turner, Marquise Vilson, Marlon Wayans, Donald Webber Jr., Rebecca Covington Webber, and the casts of Kiss My Aztec and Missing Peace.

#ENOUGH Announces Seven Winning Plays Chosen by Lauren Gunderson, David Henry Hwang and More / October 19, 2020 by David Hwang

#ENOUGH has announced the selection of seven plays by teen playwrights chosen by nationally recognized dramatists Lauren Gunderson, Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Schenkkan, Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, and Karen Zacarías, as the winners of #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence, a national short play competition for middle and high school students. On December 14, 2020 -- the eight-year remembrance of the shootings at Sandy Hook -- the winning titles will receive their digital premiere on the streaming platform Broadway on Demand and be made available for free for organizations to stage readings locally.

Read more at Broadway World

AAPI Celebration with Senator Kamala Harris / October 16, 2020 by David Hwang

Please join
Senator Kamala Harris

Maya Harris | Andrew Yang

and special guests

Margaret Cho | Connie Chung | Darren Criss

David Henry Hwang | Padma Lakshmi | Lucy Liu | Aasaf Mandvi

Kumail Nanjiani | Ravi Patel | Lou Diamond Phillips

Maggie Q | Lea Salonga | George Takei and more

for
A Celebration

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Learn more at Joe Biden.com

Breaking: Tony Nominations Coming Next Week; Sets Digital Ceremony for Early December / October 11, 2020 by David Hwang

Tony Award Productions will announce the nominations for American Theatre Wing's 74th Annual Awards® on Thursday, October 15th. The Awards Nominating Committee will meet to vote on this year's nominations on Tuesday, October 13th. The nominations announcement will be hosted by Award-winning actor James Monroe Iglehart on the official Tony Awards YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/tonyawards at 12:00 noon ET.

The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards are presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing. At The Broadway League, Thomas Schumacher is Chairman and Charlotte St. Martin is President. At the American Theatre Wing, David Henry Hwang is Chair and Heather A. Hitchens is President & CEO.

Read more at Broadway World

Re-Imagined Public Theater Virtual Gala / October 11, 2020 by David Hwang

"We must strive to build institutions worthy of the beauty of our artists," says Kenny Leon, who directs the event.

A re-imagined virtual gala from The Public Theater will be a star-studded affair as the institution looks to the future following the year’s reckoning around racism in the country. FORWARD. TOGETHER., directed by Tony winner Kenny Leon, will take place October 20 at 8 PM ET.

The event will be live streamed on The Public’s website, YouTube, and Facebook. While free to watch, donations are encouraged to support the Off-Broadway institution.

Kenny Leon Marc J. Franklin

The lineup includes Jelani Alladin, Jacqueline Antaramian, Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Danielle Brooks, Jenn Colella, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Alysha Deslorieux, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Holly Gould, Danai Gurira, Stephanie Hsu, David Henry Hwang, Oscar Isaac, Nikki M. James, Alicia Keys, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Audra McDonald, Grace McLean, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kelli O’Hara, Mia Pak, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Hyde Pierce, Phylicia Rashad, Liev Schreiber, Martin Sheen, Phillipa Soo, Meryl Streep, Stingand Trudie Styler, Will Swenson, Shaina Taub, Kuhoo Verma, Ada Westfall, and Kate Wetherhead. As previously planned for the June 1 ceremony, the gala includes a special tribute to this year’s honorees Sam Waterston and Audrey and Zygi Wilf.

Meet Theater’s Most Famous Superfan: Hillary Clinton / October 10, 2020 by David Hwang

Alyse Alan Louis, as Hillary Clinton in the Public Theatre production of SOFT POWER by David Henry Hwang.

She’s been to 39 shows since the 2016 election, and believes Broadway will return. But she doesn’t have the “gumption” to see herself depicted just yet.

Hillary Clinton has long loved theater — back in the day, she wore out a “Camelot” cast album and got standing room tickets to the original production of “Hair.”

A few dramatists have started writing about you. Last year a play called “Hillary and Clinton” imagined your 2008 campaign in an alternate universe, and then there was a musical called “Soft Power” that featured a character named Hillary Rodham Clinton who dances and sings and eats a lot of ice cream.

(Laughing) Well in my house, the dancing, singing and eating ice cream does go on. [But] I have not had the courage to go see anything about me. Sometimes in a pre-existing production, somebody will have a reference to me, and I obviously catch that. But to go and see a play about me — I haven’t gotten the gumption up to do that yet.

NEW YORK CITY: The civic-minded theatre company Waterwell has announced a national series called The Flores Exhibits: Conversations Around the Country / September 28, 2020 by David Hwang

Aimed at creating meaningful conversations about immigration. The Flores Exhibits is a collection of videos featuring artists, lawyers, advocates, and immigrants reading the testimonies of children held in detention facilities at the U.S. border. This fall, Waterwell is partnering with organizations across the country to present a series of virtual events to spark conversations about U.S. immigration policy. All videos are currently available online.

The Flores Exhibits was originally conceived by artistic director Lee Sunday Evans and co-created by Waterwell and the Broadway Advocacy Coalition in collaboration with the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. The testimonies for the project were gathered in June 2019 by a team of lawyers who visited detention facilities as monitors for the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, which limits the length of time and conditions under which children can be held in immigration detention. In response to discovering the severely detrimental conditions in detention centers, members of that team reached out to artists, journalists, and community leaders to share the stories of those affected and advocate for protections for children in government care.

The videos in The Flores Exhibits feature Elizabeth Rodriguez, Sakina Jaffrey, Kathleen Chalfant, David Schwimmer, Malina Weisman, Arian Moayed, Bitta Mostofi, Jeffrey S. Chase, David Henry Hwang, and Luis Mancheno reading exactly what is presented in a child’s sworn testimony.

Playing On Air Announces Stevenson Prize Winner, Selected by Lynn Nottage, Rebecca Taichman and David Henry Hwang / September 27, 2020 by David Hwang

Theater podcast and public radio program Playing on Air has announced the winners of the third annual James Stevenson Prize for Comedic Short Plays. The nation's largest open-submission short play prize, the Stevenson Prize awards a professional audio production and $6,000 cash prize to the play that best celebrates the comic wit of longtime author, illustrator, and New Yorker cartoonist James Stevenson.

From 960 open submissions, the 2020 winner of the Stevenson Prize is "I think it's worth pointing out that I've been very serious throughout this entire discussion or, Dave and Julia are stuck in a tree" by Mallory Jane Weiss.

The second prize of $3,000 goes to "S.W.A.T." by Jaymes Sanchez, and third prize of $1,000 goes to "The Donor" by Avery Deutsch.

This year's top plays were selected by an acclaimed panel of judges. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, Tony-winning director Rebecca Taichman, and Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang were joined by Playing on Air founder and Producing Artistic Director Claudia Catania and prize sponsor Josie Merck as jurors for the final round of scripts. All readers and judges scored scripts blind, with no knowledge of playwrights' past credits.

Read more at Broadway World

VIDEO: Watch a FLOWER DRUM SONG Reunion on Stars in the House / September 18, 2020 by David Hwang

Stars in the House continues tonight (8pm) with a Flower Drum Song reunion with David Henry Hwang, Alvin Ing, Baayork Lee, Jose Llana and Lea Salonga.

Flower Drum Song was the eighth musical by the team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is based on the 1957 novel, The Flower Drum Song, by Chinese-American author C. Y. Lee. It premiered on Broadway in 1958 and was then performed in the West End and on tour. It was adapted for a 1961 musical film. It last appeared on Broadway in 2002.

Read more at Broadway World

Playing On Air Announces Stevenson Prize Winner, Selected by Lynn Nottage, Rebecca Taichman and David Henry Hwang / September 18, 2020 by David Hwang

The winner is 'I think it's worth pointing out that I've been very serious throughout this entire discussion or, Dave and Julia are stuck in a tree' by Mallory Jane Weiss.

The second prize of $3,000 goes to "S.W.A.T." by Jaymes Sanchez, and third prize of $1,000 goes to "The Donor" by Avery Deutsch.

This year's top plays were selected by an acclaimed panel of judges. Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, Tony-winning director Rebecca Taichman, and Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang were joined by Playing on Air founder and Producing Artistic Director Claudia Catania and prize sponsor Josie Merck as jurors for the final round of scripts. All readers and judges scored scripts blind, with no knowledge of playwrights' past credits.