Daniel May is returning to Broadway after many years away in Maybe Happy Ending. Daniel made his Broadway debut in the 2002 revival of Flower Drum Song starring Lea Salonga and has been working as a theater artist his whole life. Most recently Daniel played the lead role of “Xūe Xíng” in a newly envisioned production of David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori’s Soft Power at Signature Theatre and has been with the piece since the world premiere in Los Angeles at Center Theater Group and then The Public Theater in NYC which received nominations for both the Pulitzer Prize for drama and Grammy Award in 2020. Ashley Ha is a 19-year-old Taiwanese American performer, content creator, and activist. She is most known as the founder of the widely recognized Broadway Instagram account broadway_corner. Ashley also attends Boston Conservatory where she is majoring in musical theatre. She is an advocate for representation onstage, onscreen, and in the media. Thanks for listening! Daniel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielmayof... Jeff's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yang_cheon_... If you've been a subscriber for a while, thanks for sticking around. If you're new here, hi! Let's connect: website: https://ashleylaurenha.wixsite.com/as... instagram: / broadway_corner tiktok: / broadway_corner youtube: / @ashleylaurenha email: broadwaycornerig@gmail.com
The best of classical music in 2024 /
The NSO’s European tour, a one-man “Figaro” and a musical conversation with Simone Leigh are among the year’s highlights.
As usual, my retrospective list of the “best” classical and opera offerings of the year has a lot more to do with lasting impressions than definitive rankings. This was a year of big tours and bold experiments, ambitious premieres and painful losses — among them: Sarah Gibson, Peter Schickele, Seiji Ozawa, Ewa Podleś, Maurizio Pollini and Richard Dyer.
What follows are some of my favorite musical memories from the past year. But if I can inspire you to remember just one thing from 2024, let it be my prediction that the Beyoncé trilogy will conclude with an opera. I’m very invested in being right about this.
2. Lorca came alive at the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Ainadamar’
Opera aspires to be everything at once, and Deborah Colker’s dreamlike vision of Osvaldo Golijov’s 2003 portrait of Federico García Lorca aspired to pure poetry. Soprano Angel Blue soared in the role of Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu, and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack was an appropriately haunting Lorca. But what brought this “Ainadamar” to life was its ceaseless, sinuous movement, carried atop a current of flamenco sounds. With the Met going all-in on contemporary opera, this production feels like an instant classic.
David Henry Hwang’s ‘Yellow Face’ to be filmed for PBS /
Star Daniel Dae Kim’s production company, 3AD, will partner with PBS on the capture.
The Roundabout Theatre Company (RTC) production of “Yellow Face” will be preserved in a live capture for PBS. The David Henry Hwang play will be filmed during performances on Nov. 21 through 23 at Broadway’s Todd Haimes Theatre. “Yellow Face” will air as part of PBS’ “Great Performances,” a five-decades-long series which captures all disciplines of the performing arts on film.
This announcement comes in advance of the limited engagement’s Nov. 24 closing date. Featuring direction by Leigh Silverman, “Yellow Face” began previews on Sept. 13 and opened on Oct. 1. Daniel Dae Kim stars as DHH, an Asian-American playwright who objects to the act of yellow-face casting in a musical, only to mistakenly cast a white actor in an Asian role in his own play. Kim’s production company, 3AD, will partner with PBS on the capture.
Francis Jue on ‘Yellow Face,’ A Play About What We Believe America Is /
The actor talks about the Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang's play about family and Asian representation. "David wrote it 20 years ago," he says, "but we’re still talking about the same questions. Who should be able to decide who we are? Why can’t we decide for ourselves?"
Yellow Face, which wraps a successful revival run at Roundabout’s Haines Theater today, is a semi-autobiographical play written by David Henry Hwang. How semi-autobiographical? The main character, DHH, is a playwright trying to stage a production of David Henry Hwang’s own 1993 play Face Value, a notorious flop from the author of M. Butterfly, which had made Hwang the first Asian American playwright to win a Tony Award for Best Play in 1988.
BEST OF 2024 DEC. 5, 2024 The Best Theater of 2024 Waterfront history staged afloat, a variety of robots, and Mary Todd Lincoln going wild. /
It’s that time of year again, when Vulture’s critics embark on our messiest annual tradition: the finalization of our top-ten lists. Here are the best shows that theater critics Sara Holdren and Jackson McHenry saw in 2024.
10. YELLOW FACE
Over the decades, layers of sediment have built up upon the incidents depicted in David Henry Hwang’s self-immolating farce, first performed Off Broadway in 2007, providing this Broadway production even more kindling than it had before. This version’s DHH, played by TV’s Daniel Dae Kim, is reflecting upon several discourse shifts in representational politics on his involvement in the protests against the casting of Jonathan Pryce in the 1991 Broadway run of Miss Saigon and his own subsequent flop Face Value. Packed with real history (Off Broadway MVP Shannon Tyo makes a hilarious Cameron Mackintosh) and invention (this DHH unknowingly launches the career of a white guy who pretends to be Asian), Leigh Silverman’s production was sprightly, with a gimlet take on its hero’s activist self-regard, and it found its heart in an incredible Francis Jue, returning to the role of DHH’s father, a man in love with the promise of America (and a big Miss Saigon fan) who becomes, with another twist of the screw, its victim.
David Henry Hwang Is Revising Flower Drum Song Again, for East West Players /
The Tony-winning playwright originally reimagined the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical for a short-lived 2002 Broadway revival.
Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang will again revise the book to Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, this time for a new staging at Los Angeles' East West Players. The revival is set to perform at the California theatre May 28-June 21, 2026. Lily Tung Crystal will direct, with opening night set for May 31.
The original version of the musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1958, is not exactly a shining example of authentic depictions of Asian American communities, centering on a Bay Area group of Chinese immigrants torn between their traditional values and American assimilation. Hwang first revised the title for a 2002 Broadway revival, describing it as essentially a new musical with the same songs—including "A Hundred Million Miracles," "I Enjoy Being a Girl," and "Love, Look Away." The new version, which retained the setting and some of the character names but little else from the original book by Oscar Hammerstein II and Joseph Fields from a novel by C.Y. Lee, played just a brief run on Broadway of 169 performances. Hwang's plot follows a young Chinese opera star fleeing communism, who finds herself swept away by nightclub culture in America. It's not clear what further revisions are expected for the upcoming staging.
Offscript: David Henry Hwang’s Mistaken Identity /
David Henry Hwang. (Photo by Lia Chang)
In a recent conversation with publications director Kelundra Smith, the ‘Yellow Face’ playwright talked about progress in representation and the unfairness of criticism.
Offscript, American Theatre’s flagship podcast for a number of years, is back on your podcast streaming services (including Spotify and Apple Podcasts) with the magazine’s editors and special guests.
In this episode, we are happy to share a conversation between TCG’s director of publications, Kelundra Smith, and playwright David Henry Hwang about his currently running Broadway comedy Yellow Face, starring Daniel Dae Kim and Francis Jue. The conversation was recorded at the annual gathering of American Theatre Critics and Journalists Association.
Read more and download the podcast at American Theatre
Daniel Dae Kim on Starring in 'Yellow Face' /
With Thanksgiving around the corner, New York Times Cooking and Food editor in chief Emily Weinstein joins to share her tips for making side dishes and for the next installment of our Small Stakes, Big Opinions series, we want to know from you: what's the best side dish and why?
[REBROADCAST FROM October 7, 2024] Daniel Dae Kim stars in David Henry Hwang's farcical play "Yellow Face," about an Asian American playwright who mistakenly casts a white actor in an Asian role in his own production. Kim and Hwang join us to discuss the production, which runs through November 24.
He’s Getting Raves for a Role He Wasn’t Supposed to Play /
Francis Jue said he views his stage work “as a spiritual exercise, this relationship to a script and the relationship to an audience.”Credit...Ben Sklar for The New York Times
Seventeen years after he first appeared in “Yellow Face,” the veteran actor Francis Jue has returned with a nuanced performance as a blustery patriarch.
It’s a well-worn bit of audition advice for actors: Don’t telegraph that you really want the part you are up for — just do your thing. A corollary: The creative freedom you gain when you have relinquished your thirst for a role may spur you to make fearless choices that can seal the deal.
Francis Jue has borne out this wisdom over a long and lauded career, which has reached a new height with his bittersweet turn as the blustery patriarch in David Henry Hwang’s hall-of-mirrors comedy “Yellow Face,” now on Broadway. Critics have rained superlatives on his performance: In his review for The New York Times, Jesse Green called it “masterly”; others have hailed it as both “a comic jolt” (Variety) and “heart-busting” (Time Out New York).
The ability to wring laughs as well as tears from audiences is a superpower that has made Jue a go-to actor not only for Hwang (with roles in his shows “Soft Power” and “Kung Fu”), but also for “multiple generations of Asian American playwrights,” said Mike Lew, who cast him in his play “Tiger Style!”
Returning To Direct ‘Yellow Face’ 17 Years Later, She Finds It More Relevant Than Ever /
Leigh Silverman / MARCUS MIDDLETON
Sometimes a work can take hold of you and never let you go. All you want to do is return to it. For Leigh Silverman, that work was David Henry Hwang’s play Yellow Facewhich she directed at the Public Theater in 2007.
Yellow Face was inspired, in part, by the decision to cast white actor, Jonathan Pryce, to play a French Vietnamese brothel owner in Miss Saigon on Broadway. Pryce had already played the role in the West End and had earned an Oliver award. Yellow face refers to the long history of white actors wearing makeup to portray Asian characters.
After Hwang wrote to Actors’ Equity to protest the casting, he was vilified by producers, critics and many in the theater community. Hwang saw that the issues stretched further than just Miss. Saigon. And Yellow Face delved into questions about race, identity, history and family.
Yellow Face, which became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won an Obie Award, centers around a playwright, DHH, who after fighting against yellow face casting ends up placing a white actor in his own play.
After a successful run at the Public Theater, Silverman and Hwang worked on eight more projects. “David and I have worked together so much and so deeply, our collaboration has been a tent pole of my career,” says Silverman.
6 New Shows Our Theater Critics Are Talking About /
The fall season is underway, and our reviewers think these productions are worth knowing about, even if you’re not planning to see them.
YELLOW FACE
David Henry Hwang’s 2007 satire, directed by Leigh Silverman, arrives on Broadway starring Daniel Dae Kim as an Asian American playwright who protests yellowface casting only to inadvertently, and hilariously, cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play.
Daniel Dae Kim Talks Embracing Comedy and Humiliating Himself on Stage in Broadway Play ‘Yellow Face’ /
The play, which explores race and identity in a farce setting, is written by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang and directed by Leigh Silverman.
When it came to returning to Broadway, Daniel Dae Kim had a few criteria in mind.
The actor, known for his role in “Lost,” debuted on Broadway in 2016 in “The King and I” at the Lincoln Center Theater. Now, Kim is starring in “Yellow Face,” a semi-autobiographical play by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang playing at the Todd Haimes Theatre through Nov. 24.
“Yellow Face,” directed by Leigh Silverman, follows Kim’s character DHH, loosely based on Hwang, as he protests the yellowface casting of actor Jonathan Pryce in “Miss Saigon” on Broadway. While this part is true, the production, a revival from 2007, takes a few fictionalized twists as DHH goes on to accidentally cast a white actor in an Asian role in his show “Face Value” — satirical chaos ensues with family members, friends, reporters and more as DHH realizes his mistake.
Happy Birthday to New York’s PAC /
Luminaries gathered to kick off the Perelman Performing Arts Center’s inaugural Icons of Culture Festival, beginning with an award bestowed to MTV pioneer Tom Freston.
Tuesday night, PAC NYC—which is chaired by Bloomberg, and whose name derives from patron Ronald Perelman—took a well-deserved victory lap for a debut year done right as it kicked off its first Icons of Culture Festival, a five-day celebration featuring talent like opera diva Renée Fleming, Questlove, Kathleen Turner, Instagram’s The Dogist, Alanis Morissette, tightrope walker Philippe Petit, Michael Imperioli, and others, including (what’s this?!) VF’s own Little Gold Men podcast, recording a live chat with John David “The Protagonist” Washington on Friday.
During an election cycle, the acronym PAC can have heavy implications. But for theater lovers and concertgoers in New York City, PAC NYC now means the Perelman Performing Arts Center. Featuring three expandable and contractible theaters, a restaurant, a terrace, toilet stalls with green and red lights so you never have to touch the handle to discover a locked door, and a slick-looking lobby with regular free events, its first year boasted talks led by David Letterman, a new opera from Huang Ro and David Henry Hwang, and a one-man show from Laurence Fishburne as well as The Jellicle Ball.
'It was a huge risk': NMPBS documentary raises the curtain on the Santa Fe Opera's history /
The Crosby Theatre with audience and orchestra at the Santa Fe Opera. Courtesy of Bob Godwin for the Santa Fe Opera
The crown jewel of New Mexico arts is finally getting a documentary.
Slated to screen first at Santa Fe’s Lensic Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Nov. 7, and on New Mexico PBS on Thursday, Nov. 14, “An American Vision: The Santa Fe Opera” is the first film documentary to focus on what has become one of the world’s most sought-after summer festivals.
Featuring never-before-seen archival materials and performance footage, the documentary film captures the opera’s remarkable history and explores the visionary efforts that have made it one of the world’s most sought-after summer festivals.
The film examines key moments in the opera’s history and features never-before-seen archival materials as well as interviews with leading creative figures including Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist David Henry Hwang, composer Huang Ruo, writer and critic Anne Midgette, renowned tenor and National Medal of Arts awardee George Shirley, opera director Peter Sellars, Santa Fe Opera music director Harry Bicket, general director Robert K. Meya and more.
How David Henry Hwang Wrote One of the Smartest Plays on Broadway /
JOAN MARCUS
The playwright behind Yellow Face did more than just tell a story, he mined his own life for material.
“Laughter,” David Henry Hwang says, “is potentially a binding force in the theater. It allows us to relax around each other and feel more comfortable in the context of issues that sometimes make us squirm.”
What kind of issues might those be? In the case of Yellow Face, Hwang’s Pulitzer Prize-finalist play currently running at Broadway’s Todd Haimes Theatre through November 24, audiences can take their pick. The sharp, funny drama—which the New Yorker called “audacious and fresh”—takes inspiration from Hwang’s own life, beginning with his protests regarding the casting of a white actor to play a Eurasian role in the 1990 Broadway musical Miss Saigon, and tackles additional complications in the form of racial injustice on and off stage, family drama, and professional pitfalls, just to name a few. For anyone who still doesn’t feel just a bit uneasy, remember that the play’s main character (played by Daniel Dae Kim) is a playwright named DHH.
That’s just one place where real life and the world Yellow Face, which is directed by Leigh Silverman,depicts on stage differ. While the Hwang character in the show can come across as occasionally bumbling, in real life the Tony-winning playwright seems to know exactly what he’s doing.
“David really has experienced a lot, and he’s much more willing to put himself and his private life into the public, not only through his work but through his advocacy,” explains Kim. “He has had some interesting things happen to him that have fed his life, not just as a human being but as an artist, and I applaud his bravery in wanting to share that with audiences. It not only makes him an interesting character in life, but also on the page. It’s easy to see why he would want to take his own experiences and shift them only slightly to have them apply to all of us.”
Celebrities on the Broadway Stage /
For decades, Broadway has welcomed film and TV's biggest stars as they headed to New York City for the chance to share in the intimate experience of performing in front of a live audience. This Broadway season is no exception.
Here are some of the celebrities who are spending time on the Broadway boards this season.
DANIEL DAY KIM in YELLOW FACE
Now Open; Closes November 24, 2024
Lost and Hawaii Five-0 favorite Daniel Dae Kim returns to Broadway in David Henry Hwang's Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer finalist farce about a playwright who protests yellowface casting in Miss Saigon, only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play.
10 Pieces of Art in NYC You Should See, Daniel Dae Kim in David Henry Hwang's 'Yellowface' /
Daniel Dae Kim stars in David Henry Hwang's farcical play "Yellowface," about an Asian American playwright who mistakenly casts a white actor in an Asian role in his own production. Kim and Hwang join us to discuss the production, which runs through November 24.
We’re Hearing Things /
Daniel Dae Kim to Perform at Dramatists Guild Foundation Gala /
A starry lineup of artists are set to perform and appear at this year's Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF) Gala, which will be held October 24 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom. The evening will celebrate writers and their work, with direction by Noah Himmelstein and music direction by Julianne Merrill.
Performers will include Daniel Dae Kim (Yellow Face), Nikki Renée Daniels (Once Upon a Mattress, Company), Jeanna de Waal (Diana), Francis Jue (Yellow Face), and Jack Wolfe (Next to Normal).
David Henry Hwang Discusses His Play ‘Yellow Face,’ Now on Broadway /
First produced off-Broadway in 2007, the work, more potent than ever, continues to speak to the times.
On October 30, playwright and School of the Arts faculty member David Henry Hwang and director Leigh Silverman will discuss Yellow Face, Hwang’s acclaimed comedy about identity, show business, and (perhaps) autobiography. Playwright and director James Ijames will moderate the discussion, which will be held at 7 pm at the Lenfest Center for the Arts, and School of the Arts Dean Sarah Cole will introduce the participants.
Yellow Face is making its Broadway debut at the Roundabout Theatre through November 24. Per the Playbill for this production, the play “is inspired by real events. The playwright’s fictionalized doppelgänger protests yellow-face casting in Miss Saigon, only to mistakenly cast a white actor as the Asian lead in his own play.”
Hwang discusses Yellow Face, its continued relevance, and his other work with Columbia News.