Memories of a Soldier from Chinatown, by 12 Speakers / October 23, 2023 by David Hwang

Danny Chen, who died by suicide after being subjected to hazing in Afghanistan, will be memorialized by readers, including a well-known playwright.

Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll find out about a commemoration for a soldier from Chinatown who died by suicide after being subjected to hazing by other soldiers in Afghanistan. We’ll also see how the first day of Donald Trump’s civil trial unfolded.

A dozen people will stand on a street corner in Lower Manhattan this morning. Each will read a paragraph about Pvt. Danny Chen, who died by suicide after being subjected to hazing and taunts by other soldiers in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, 12 years ago. This is from the paragraph that will be read by Anthony Chen, a cousin who is a college student:

“His funeral was the first funeral I’d ever attended. I was 8 years old. I didn’t know what was going on. Seeing Danny in a casket for the first time was surreal. Danny was always the jokester in the family. I thought any minute now he would pop up and surprise everyone, and everything would be OK.”

The last of the readers at the commemoration will be the playwright David Henry Hwang, who wrote the libretto for an opera inspired by Private Chen’s story, “An American Soldier.” With music by Huang Ruo, it had its premiere at the Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2018 and will be staged in May at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center near One World Trade Center.

David Henry Hwang and James Ijames Join Dramatists Guild Foundation's Board of Directors / October 23, 2023 by David Hwang

Dramatists Guild Foundation has announced that acclaimed, Award-winning playwrights David Henry Hwang and James Ijames join the Board of Directors to help shape and guide the organization’s mission to support theater writers at all stages of their careers.

“On the stage, David and James write stunning and impactful stories that stay with you long after you leave the theater. Off the stage, they work to shape a better future for those looking to tell their stories. We are thrilled and deeply honored to have their voices on our leadership team,” DGF’s Executive Director Rachel Routh said.

David Henry Hwang’s stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Aida (reconceived revival launched 2023 in Europe), Soft Power, Flower Drum Song and Disney’s Tarzan. Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist by Opera News, he has written thirteen libretti, including five with composer Philip Glass. His screenplays include M. Butterfly and he is penning an Anna May Wong biopic to star actress Gemma Chan. 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 currently show running and creating A New Television series, Billion Dollar Whale. A professor at Columbia University and recent Chair of the American Theatre Wing, Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a Grammy Award winner and two-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2018 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021; his star was unveiled on the Lucille Lortel Playwrights Sidewalk in 2022.

A Starry Debut for NYC's New Cultural Landmark / September 19, 2023 by David Hwang

David Henry Hwang, Jenn Freeman, and Sonya Tayeh.

The most buzzed-about debut in New York City this week wasn’t at a fashion show, but instead downtown on September 14 when the Perelman Performing Arts Center finally opened its doors.

The inaugural event at the anticipated cultural hub was a starry affair ahead of the September 19 public opening, with guests including Robert De Niro, Cherry Jones, Lynn Nottage, Rosario Dawson, James Taylor, Whoopi Goldberg, Amanda Gorman, and John Leguizamo joining Michael R. Bloomberg, the chair of the PAC’s board of directors, executive director Khady Kamara, and artistic director Bill Rauch for an evening of music, dance, poetry, comedy and more.

The lucky crowd’s first peek at the new PAC also included cocktails and snacks (by Marcus Samuelsson Restaurant Group, which will open a restaurant at PAC this fall) in the David Rockwell-designed lobby and music from DJ Elle Dee.

Reframing 9/11, with Theater. / September 15, 2023 by David Hwang

The new performing arts center at the World Trade Center smartly decided to hold its official opening day ceremony on Wednesday, not today. But if all goes well, the marble cube of the Perelman Performing Arts Center (nicknamed PAC NYC) promises to replace the current recurring images of the World Trade Center site: surely, it’s more eye-catching than the two beams of light meant as an annual memorial on September 11th; maybe it will even push from memory the images of the attack on September 11th, 2001 and of the stark, smoldering ruins afterward. After all, the 4,896 slabs of marble that make up the PAC’s exterior wall will glow every night. The glow has already made for some striking magazine spreads in Architectural Digest, and New York Magazine, and, a bit oddly, Vogue.

Authors Michael Chabon, David Henry Hwang, others sue ChatGPT maker for copyright infringement / September 15, 2023 by David Hwang

*The lawsuit is at least the third proposed copyright-infringement class action filed by authors against Microsoft-backed OpenAI.*
***Anthony Behar/Sipa USA***

A group of US authors, including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon, has sued OpenAI in federal court in San Francisco, accusing the Microsoft-backed program of misusing their writing to train its popular artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT.

Chabon, playwright David Henry Hwang and authors Matthew Klam, Rachel Louise Snyder and Ayelet Waldman said in their lawsuit on Friday that OpenAI copied their works without permission to teach ChatGPT to respond to human text prompts.

Chabon’s representatives referred queries about the lawsuit to the writers’ lawyers. Those lawyers and representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Michael Chabon, David Henry Hwang, Other Writers Sue Meta AI Platform LLaMA For Copyright Infringement, Seek Class Action Status / September 15, 2023 by David Hwang

Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon and Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang are among a group of writers that filed a class action lawsuit against Meta in San Francisco federal court for having “copied and ingested” their works to train its LLaMA AI platform.

Plaintiffs also including authors Matthew Klam, Rachel Louise and Ayelet Waldman are seeking class action status for the suit, which says their copyrighted books appear in the dataset that Meta has admitted to using to train LLaMA.

“Plaintiffs and Class members did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training materials for LLaMA,” said the group, which filed a similar suit last week against ChatGPT parent OpenAI.

YELLOW FACE Comes to Grand Central Art Center / September 8, 2023 by David Hwang

Yellow Face opens on Friday September 15, 2023.

The Wayward Artist presents the Obie Award winning play Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang. Also selected as a “finalist” in the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Yellow Face performances begin Friday, September 15th and run through Sunday, September 24th at the Grand Central Art Center in downtown Santa Ana. This acclaimed theatrical work is unique in that it is both fact and fiction.

In an interview with the Washington Post, David Henry Hwang said, “The main character is named after me and based on me. There are some things in it that are true and there are some things in it that aren’t true. There is this kind of postmodern idea of playing with your own identity in the construct of yourself as the author.”

Ten Broadway hits that are yet to be seen in the UK / September 8, 2023 by David Hwang

*West End / Broadway, © Andy Bird (CC BY-SA 2.0)/Kevin Poh (CC BY 2.0)*

When will these theatrical gems debut on our stages?

AIDA

Lyricist Tim Rice had been hinting at a London premiere for Aida back in 2020 but there have been no official announcements made since then for this Disney Theatrical title, which also features music by Elton John and a book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls and David Henry Hwang. A Stage Entertainment production is currently taking bookings at Scheveningen’s AFAS Circustheater in the Netherlands until 31 January 2024, so we have our fingers crossed that a UK premiere might still be “written in the stars” after this.

The Perelman Performing Arts Center Is About to Open—A Beacon for Downtown New York / September 8, 2023 by David Hwang

CENTER STAGE
In one of the building’s state-of-the-art auditoriums, model Sherry Shi (left) wears a Balenciaga dress; balenciaga.com. Model Abby Champion wears an Alexander McQueen blazer and pants; alexandermcqueen.com.

If you work or live near the World Trade Center, you are regularly confronted with impermanence. A pathway that has been blocked for months (years?) by plywood partitions and concrete barricades is suddenly accessible as a corridor for authorized vehicles and swarms of tourists. Corrugated tin walls, a shield for large-scale HVAC equipment resembling steampunk vents, become a cheery Instagram backdrop when splashed with colorful murals. A biergarten sprouts on a concrete patio; a subway entrance improbably opens where the sidewalk seemed impermeable. Men in suits have been supplanted by nannies pushing strollers into the Wall Street–adjacent Whole Foods. This corner of New York grows in unpredictable ways.

So those of us who watched the construction of the giant marble cube next to the memorial might be forgiven for a little nonchalance: another set of steel foundations, dug deep then stretching high. But the opening of the Perelman Performing Arts Center—or PAC NYC—marks a historic moment: The last public building erected as part of the original master redevelopment plan for the World Trade Center site created by Daniel Libeskind, it has been two decades in the making, hamstrung not only by bureaucratic complexities but by stalled design plans and a rotation of artistic organizations—the Joyce Theater, the Drawing Center, the Signature Theatre, New York City Opera—that each had, at one point, been proposed as potential tenants. (The man after whom the center is named, Ronald O. Perelman—he declined to speak for this story—while credited with providing the initial funding, is no longer the biggest donor. That honor belongs to Michael Bloomberg.)

The program, of course, will be central to that, and it is being designed by artistic director Bill Rauch, who formerly led the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The first new commission—and first world premiere—for the center, Watch Night, is a collaboration between the legendary dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph, composer Tamar-kali, and dramaturge Lauren Whitehead that draws upon spirituals, opera, and slam poetry. Next year, the center will host Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang’s opera An American Soldier; a comedy from the group behind Reservation Dogs, which spans 90 years in the life of a fictional Native American family; as well as a reimagined version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats set amid the Ballroom culture of the 1970s. And that’s just a sampling.

Schele Williams, the Directing Whiz Behind the New ‘Wiz’ and ‘Aida’ / September 8, 2023 by David Hwang

*Schele Williams on the first day of rehearsals for "The Wiz." (Photo by Jeremy Daniel)*

This passionate director, once a performer in ‘Aida,’ returns at the helm of a revised production, as well as of ‘The Wiz,’ bound for Broadway and a new generation.

The word revival, according to Schele Williams, means to give new life. But in order to give something a future, one must be willing to fully unpack and understand the meaning of its past.

Williams, a busy actor, director, and author, has recently been tasked with giving new life to two beloved Broadway classics, Aida and The Wiz. As a member of the original Broadway cast of Aida, and growing up on the story of The Wiz, Williams understands the weight these stories hold in the Broadway canon, and especially in the context of Black culture. She is passionate about continuing the tradition by passing down these tales to the next generation, but she is aiming to ensure that both of these new iterations resonate with audiences as they once did with her.

The Aida revival, currently running at AFAS Circustheater in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, was to have a developmental lab in the spring of 2020, but when COVID paused the rehearsal process, Williams used the time to rethink how the story would land with audiences when theatres reopened. “We went back into the show and said, okay, this is different,” Williams said. “The world is different. We have shifted. We’re better artists now. Let’s break the show open and do a full rewrite.”

That rewrite, which involved original book writer David Henry Hwang, consisted of new research into Nubian and Egyptian history that Williams said was absent from the original staging. She is weaving this throughout the set, characters, costumes, and script—without making you feel like you are in a history class. “It’s not a documentary,” she said. “It’s still an Elton John musical, but are there moments in history we can glean and use to actually tell something that is unexpected?”

Picket Sign Roundup: “We Want A Fair Wage, They Want Us Homeless” / August 30, 2023 by David Hwang

One picketer said it best: “The longer this strike goes, the more detailed these signs get.”

Judging by some of those Simpsons-themed placards, he’s not wrong. But there have also been lots of not-so-veiled references to some of the ongoing strike coverage. (Don’t recognize the reference to Carol Lombardini and The Cheesecake Factory? Read this story. Can’t remember the exact quote about putting people out of their homes? That notorious line originated here.)

Some of the signs also just show signs of fatigue. “I’m gonna be honest I’m running out of clever sign memes,” said one. “Cause, like, seriously?”

It’s now day 120 of the WGA strike and Day 47 of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Here’s what some picketers have to say these days about walking the line.

American Composers Orchestra Announces 2023-24 Season & Collaborations / August 14, 2023 by David Hwang

The American Composers Orchestra (ACO) released its 2023-24 season lineup and exciting collaborations.

This article features vocal related works only.

Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s Opera “An American Soldier” makes its New York Premiere at the Perelman Arts Center in NYC. Carolyn Kuan conducts.

Performance Dates: May 12-19, 2024

New Works Festival serves up a feast of four unique new plays / August 14, 2023 by David Hwang

The New Works Festival launches with a special dinner and conversation featuring Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, left, and Rajiv Joseph on Aug. 11. David Henry Hwang photo courtesy Matthew Murray; Rajiv Joseph photo courtesy Rohit Chandra.

For the 2023 edition of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s annual New Works Festival, the Tony Award-winning company is cooking up generation-spanning stories and offering audiences a healthy helping of tasty tales.

“The theme is ‘Feed Your Soul,’” said TheatreWorks’ newly appointed Artistic Director and longtime Director of New Works Giovanna Sardelli. That theme refers not only to the fact that some of the plays in this year’s festival are set in the kitchen, and all four works involve food-centric moments in some way, Sardelli explained, but also because feeding the soul “is what theater does.” And the New Works Festival, she said, “feeds the soul of theater.”

Two special fundraising events will also be held in conjunction with the festival. On Aug. 11, playwrights David Henry Hwang and Rajiv Joseph (both Pulitzer Prize finalists whose work has been produced at TheatreWorks, with Sardelli serving as one of Joseph’s longtime collaborators) will be in conversation, following a dinner party including Hwang, Joseph and all the festival’s featured writers. “They’ll be sharing stories from their lives in the theater,” Sardelli said. “Nothing is better than writers asking each other questions.”

Disney Cancels Josh Gad ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ / August 14, 2023 by David Hwang

CEO Bob Iger said to be not a fan.

It’s claimed that Bob Iger and Disney have canceled the planned live-action Hunchback of Notre Dame movie from Josh Gad, which follows a string of failures from the company.

Back in 2019, it was announced that Josh Gad was developing a live-action musical adaptation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Tony-winning M. Butterfly playwright David Henry Hwang writing the script, and Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz writing the music. The film was said to be pulling from the 1996 animated film from Disney.

Well, apparently, Bob Iger isn’t a big fan and has decided to cancel the Josh Gad Hunchback of Notre Dame movie.

Pinoy-themed opening night for Broadway’s first all-Filipino musical 'Here Lies Love' / July 28, 2023 by David Hwang

Among those who joined HLL stars Arielle Jacobs, Conrad Ricamora, Jose Llana and Lea Salonga, director Alex Timbers, producer Jose Antonio Vargas and creator David Byrne, were HLL producers H.E.R. and Jo Koy, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee with his children Jackson and Satchel, Korean actor-director Daniel Dae Kim of “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-O”, Fil-Am actress Tia Carrere, fashion designer Josie Cruz Natori, drag queen and reality TV star Manila Luzon, and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (who even wore a Barong Tagalog).

6 Short Plays by Teens Selected as ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence Winners / July 28, 2023 by David Hwang

*Clockwise from top left: Niarra C. Bell, Pepper Fox, Sam Victor Lee, Valentine Wulf, Justin Cameron Washington, and HJ Kennedy.*

As part of a series of coast-to-coast readings to be held in November, the 6 winning plays will be presented at Kennedy Center’s Theater Lab.

ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence has announced the six winners of its national short-play competition for teen writers: The Smiles Behind by Niarra C. Bell (Virginia), A Call for Help by Pepper Fox (Kentucky), rOunds by HJ Kennedy (North Carolina), A Disorderly House by Sam Lee Victor (New Jersey), No Prospering Weapons by Justin Cameron Washington (Michigan), and The Matter at Hand by Valentine Wulf (Washington). Led by creator and artistic producer Michael Cotey, the ENOUGH! initiative calls on teens to confront gun violence by creating new works of theatre that will spark critical conversations and inspire meaningful action in communities across the country.

ENOUGH! received 244 submissions from 36 states this past spring when it called on teens to write 10-minute plays on gun violence. This year’s plays were selected by nationally recognized dramatists Idris Goodwin, Lauren Gunderson, Zora Howard, Samuel D. Hunter, David Henry Hwang, Octavio Solis, and Lloyd Suh. Each winning playwright receives a $500 stipend sponsored by gun violence prevention organization Change the Ref, has their play published and licensed through Playscripts, Inc., and receives from the Dramatists Guild both a membership and craft training.

ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence Names Six Winning Plays to Premiere at The Kennedy Center and Nationwide / July 28, 2023 by David Hwang

Promising young playwrights take a stand against gun violence in their compelling works.

ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence proudly announces its selection of six bold new plays about gun violence as the winners of its national short play competition: The Smiles Behind by Niarra C. Bell (Virginia), A Call for Help by Pepper Fox (Kentucky), rOunds by HJ Kennedy (North Carolina), A Disorderly House by Sam Lee Victor (New Jersey), No Prospering Weapons by Justin Cameron Washington (Michigan), and The Matter at Hand by Valentine Wulf (Washington). Led by its creator and Joaquin Oliver Artistic Producer, Michael Cotey, the ENOUGH! initiative calls on teens to confront gun violence by creating new works of theatre that will spark critical conversations and inspire meaningful action in communities across the country.

New Stages Theatre Announces Eight Contemporary Professional Shows for the 2023-2024 Season / June 30, 2023 by David Hwang

The full season line-up includes:

October: THIS IS HOW WE GOT HERE by Keith Barker

A staged reading at Market Hall. A beautiful drama by Métis playwright Keith Barker about two families in north Ontario grieving a tragic loss, when they are surprised by a mysterious visitor.

June: YELLOW FACE by David Henry Hwang.

A staged reading at Market Hall. A satirical play about the once-common practice of casting White actors to play Asian roles on stage and screen. At once wickedly funny & vital viewing.

After two decades, arts center near One World Trade announces its premiere season / June 17, 2023 by David Hwang

Nearly two decades after a master plan for redeveloping the former site of the World Trade Center was drafted, a cultural facility long promised as part of that plan is set to open in September. The Perelman Performing Arts Center, directed by a blue-chip team of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, organizers and curators, announced details of its inaugural season on Wednesday morning.

The facility, located on the corner of Fulton and Greenwich streets, is named for one of its leading benefactors, banker and investor Ronald O. Perelman. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading force behind the Hudson Yards arts and culture facility The Shed, is the chairman of the board for the new center. The branding of the facility is now emphasizing PAC NYC — Performing Arts Center New York City — as its name.

“An American Soldier”

Composer Huang Ruo, playwright David Henry Hwang and director Chay Yew fashion a new opera from the true story of Danny Chen, a U.S. Army soldier who served in Afghanistan, and whose suicide prompted a military investigation.

World Trade Center Arts Space to Open With Music, Theater and Dance / June 17, 2023 by David Hwang

A one-man Laurence Fishburne show, a Bill T. Jones premiere and a new take on “Cats” will be among the offerings at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center.

As the marble-clad, cube-like Perelman Performing Arts Center has taken shape at the World Trade Center site, questions have swirled about what will actually happen inside.

Some answers came on Wednesday, when the center announced a first year of programming that will feature original work, including the premiere of an autobiographical play written by and starring the actor Laurence Fishburne called “Like They Do in the Movies,” as well as partnerships, including with the Tribeca Festival.

Bill Rauch, the center’s artistic director, said the roster was deliberately eclectic.

“We much want to give many different audiences many different reasons to come into our building,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that PAC NYC — as the center is being called — is invested in “creating connections.”

The year will feature dance, opera, music and theater. Some highlights include:

The New York Premiere of “An American Soldier,” an opera by the composer Huang Ruo and the playwright David Henry Hwang. The opera, which will be staged in May, tells the true story of Danny Chen, a New Yorker who enlisted in the Army and was subjected to hazing and racist taunts in Afghanistan, and who killed himself at 19.