Dramatists Guild Foundation S6 Ep 5: "Not Just Paying it Backwards" David Henry Hwang / November 21, 2025 by David Hwang

Christine talks to another fellow Guild Council member and pioneer, David Henry Hwang. In this episode they discuss how naming some of his characters after himself changed David's perspective on telling his own story, breaking the cycle of Asian Americans portrayed as “perpetual foreigners” on Broadway, writing for ourselves, and how the Guild is fighting for us.

Playwright, librettist and screenwriter David Henry Hwang is a Tony Award winner and four-time nominee, Grammy Award winner and two-time nominee, and three-time Pulitzer finalist His award-winning works include: YELLOW FACE, M. BUTTERFLY, AIDA, SOFT POWER, and the opera AINADAMAR.

*Note: You can watch the filmed version of the Roundabout's Broadway production of YELLOW FACE at pbs.org

Get a 1st Look at David Henry Hwang and Huang Ruo's The Monkey King at San Francisco Opera / November 14, 2025 by David Hwang

Tony winner Diane Paulus directs the world premiere production, opening November 14.

David Henry Hwang and Huang Ruo's latest opera The Monkey King is making its world premiere at San Francisco Opera, opening November 14. Get a first look at the production, directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus, in the gallery below.

Based on the 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West, the opera tells the story of a monkey, born from a stone egg, who embarks on a quest for the secret of immortality, mischievously thumbing his nose at authority along the way. The piece incorporates puppetry, dance, Peking opera, and Buddhist sutras.

Best Bets: ‘Monkey King,’ / November 14, 2025 by David Hwang

The Monkey shines: In what looks certain to be San Francisco Opera’s most eye-popping and resplendent production of the season, Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s “The Monkey King” makes its world premiere on the War Memorial Opera House stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday for an eight- performance run that will end with a 2 p.m. matinee on Nov. 30. It’s based on “Journey to the West,” an epic Ming Dynasty Chinese novel that has become all-pervasive over the four centuries, having sparked innumerable artworks, plays, movies, TV shows, comics and graphic literature, music, dance and even video games. At its center is the irrepressible Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, an iconic character who carries every bit as much cultural weight as Western superheroes such as Batman and Superman, who does battle with deities on heaven and earth in his quest for immortality. Composer Huang and librettist Hwang, whose previous collaborations include the operatic version of Hwang’s 1988 play “M. Butterfly,” blend Eastern and Western traditions in the opera, sung in Mandarin and English and enhanced with puppetry, projections, dance and gorgeous costuming. Singing the title role in his San Francisco debut is Australian tenor Kang Wang, with South Korean tenor Konu Kim performing as the Jade Emperor and soprano Mei Gui Zhang as the Chinese goddess of compassion Guanyin. The conductor is Hartford Symphony music director Carolyn Kuan, who led the world premiere of “M. Butterfly” in Santa Fe in 2022. Tickets for the production are $29-$447, but only $25 for the livestream of the Nov. 18 performance.

Bay Area arts: 10 shows and concerts to catch this weekend / November 14, 2025 by David Hwang

In what looks virtually certain to be San Francisco Opera’s most eye-poppingly resplendent production of the season, Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s “The Monkey King” makes its world premiere on the War Memorial Opera House stage at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14 for an eight-performance run that will end with a 2 p.m. matinee on Nov. 30. It’s based on “Journey to the West,” an epic Ming Dynasty Chinese novel that has become all-pervasive over the last four centuries, having sparked innumerable creations in artworks, plays, movies, TV shows, comics and graphic literature, music, dance and even video games.

At its center is the irrepressible Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, an iconic character who carries every bit as much cultural weight as Western superheroes such as Batman and Superman and who does battle with deities on heaven and earth in his quest for immortality. Composer Huang and librettist Hwang, whose multiple previous collaborations include the operatic version of Hwang’s 1988 play “M. Butterfly,” have created a blend of Eastern and Western traditions that will be sung in both Mandarin and English and visually enhanced with puppetry, projections, dance and gorgeous costuming. Singing the title role in his San Francisco debut is Australian tenor Kang Wang, with South Korean tenor Konu Kim performing as the Jade Emperor and soprano Mei Gui Zhang as the Chinese goddess of compassion Guanyin. The conductor is Hartford Symphony music director Carolyn Kuan, who also led the world premiere of “M. Butterfly” in Santa Fe in 2022.

Classic Chinese superhero comes to life in SF Opera world premiere / November 14, 2025 by David Hwang

An early rehearsal for Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's "The Monkey King," with the monkey puppet. Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Composer Huang Ruo long dreamed of adapting the classic Chinese tale “Journey to the West” and its mythical character the Monkey King into an opera, but thought that ambition was a pipe dream.

“I grew up in China with that story — the Monkey King is equivalent to Mickey Mouse for us — and since I've become a composer it has been in my heart that it would be great if this intriguing, magical story could be shown on the operatic stage,” Huang said. “When librettist David Henry Hwang and I went to Matthew Shilvock of San Francisco Opera right before the pandemic, we were delightfully surprised that he accepted our proposal.”

Commissioned by San Francisco Opera in partnership with the Chinese Heritage Foundation of Minnesota, “The Monkey King” will make its world premiere Nov. 14-30 at the War Memorial Opera House. The opus, a fusion of opera, dance and puppetry, is in English and Mandarin and follows the fabled figure known in China as Sun Wukong, who is born from stone and challenges the gods of the seas and heavens in a bid for immortality.

Proficient in martial arts, the Monkey King has an action-hero quality that has been cherished in China for centuries and has gained popularity elsewhere. Indeed, his superhero story has appeared in film, television, animation and in the blockbuster video game “Black Myth: Wukong.”

Huang’s desire to compose an opera about the Monkey King was reinforced in the wake of Halloween in 2020.

“My son was dressed as Spider-Man and my daughter as Elsa from ‘Frozen,’” he recounted. “I was thinking, wouldn't it be nice to have a superhero from Asia for young kids to look up to? Also, to have a costume to dress up in, particularly for the Asian-American kids so they have someone from their culture they could be proud of?”

A Shape-Shifting Hero for a ‘Third Culture’ Opera / November 13, 2025 by David Hwang

Huang Ruo’s “The Monkey King” at San Francisco Opera transforms a classic Chinese tale into a reflection on identity, enlightenment and the creativity sparked when cultures entwine.

Inside a cavernous rehearsal space near the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, the singer portraying the monk-like sage Subhuti was wielding a golden kung fu staff with serene precision. “Power alone is not enough” he intoned to the trickster hero of “The Monkey King,” Huang Ruo’s opera, which premieres this month at San Francisco Opera.

The staff came down with a sharp tap on Monkey’s shoulders — spiritual instruction with a comic jolt. (“Tough love,” murmured Diane Paulus, the production’s director.)

The Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, a longtime collaborator of Huang’s, shaped a libretto from this unruly material, distilling its transformations and cosmic adventures into something that could live and breathe onstage.

“‘The Monkey King’ brings together the ancient classical side and the contemporary political side of his interests,” Hwang said of the composer, adding that Huang wasn’t afraid to draw from a wide range of influences.

San Francisco Opera’s ‘The Monkey King’ ready to premiere with magical Kung Fu and puppetry / November 13, 2025 by David Hwang

The Monkey King, a beloved figure in Chinese mythology, is now the star of an opera. With music by Huang Ruo and a libretto by David Henry Hwang,

SAN FRANCISCO(AP) — A rascally superhero born from a stone egg, the Monkey King is beloved in Chinese mythology, appearing in everything from a 16th century epic to modern comics, animated movies and video games — even in poetry by Mao Zedong.

And now he’s the star of an opera.

“The Monkey King,” with music by Huang Ruo and libretto by David Henry Hwang, has its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on Friday with performances through Nov. 30.

Best Opera Recording nominations / November 10, 2025 by David Hwang

Best Opera Recording nominations went to Heggie's Intelligence, Huang Ruo's An American Soldier (with librettist David Henry Hwang as a nominee because he produced the album), Kouyoumdjian's Adoration, O'Halloran's Trade & Mary Motorhead, and Jeanine Tesori's Grounded.

An American Soldier gets 2026 Classical Grammy Nomination / November 8, 2025 by David Hwang

The Recording Academy has announced the nominations for the 2026 Grammy Awards. The winning awards will be presented in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 1, 2026. The following are the nominations in the classical category for orchestra, small ensemble, solo instrumentalist, engineering, producer, and opera.

Best Opera Recording (award to the conductor, album producer/s, and principal soloists, and to the composer and librettist [if applicable] of a world premiere opera recording only):

– Heggie: Intelligence—Kwamé Ryan, conductor; Jamie Barton, J’Nai Bridges, and Janai Brugger; Blanton Alspaugh, producer (Houston Grand Opera; Gene Scheer)

– Huang Ruo: An American Soldier—Carolyn Kuan, conductor; Hannah Cho, Alex DeSocio, Nina Yoshida Nelsen, and Brian Vu; Adam Abeshouse, Silas Brown, and Doron Schachter, producers (American Composers Orchestra; David Henry Hwang)

– Kouyoumdjian: Adoration—Alan Pierson, conductor; Miriam Khalil, Marc Kudisch, David Adam Moore, Omar Najmi, Naomi Louisa O’Connell, and Karim Sulayman; Mary Kouyoumdjian, producer (Silvana Quartet; The Choir of Trinity Wall Street)

– O’Halloran: Trade and Mary Motorhead—Elaine Kelly, conductor; Oisín Ó Dálaigh and John Molloy; Alex Dowling and Emma O’Halloran, producers (Irish National Opera Orchestra; Mark O’Halloran)

– Tesori: Grounded—Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; Ben Bliss, Emily D’Angelo, Greer Grimsley, and Kyle Miller; David Frost, producer (The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; The Metropolitan Opera Chorus; George Brant)

David Henry Hwang's Particle Fever Musical Will Make World Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse / October 30, 2025 by David Hwang

La Jolla Playhouse's 2026-2027 season will feature three world-premiere musicals—The Family Album, GRIM, and Particle Fever—as well as the West Coast premieres of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose and Ngozi Anyanwu's The Monsters, and the world premiere of Mat Smart's A Black-billed Cuckoo.

The 2026-2027 subscription slate marks the final season curated by Tony winner Christopher Ashley, the Playhouse’s Artistic Director, who will depart the organization in January 2026 after nearly two decades, to lead New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company.

The world premiere of the new musical Particle Fever, based on the documentary film by Mark Levinson and David Kaplan, boasts a book by Tony winner David Henry Hwang, music and lyrics by Bear McCreary and Zoe Sarnak, and a story by all three. Leigh Silverman will direct the February-March 2027 engagement, which plans to hurtle audiences into the most ambitious experiment ever attempted when more than 10,000 scientists from around the world joined forces to build the Large Hadron Collider and solve one of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026-27 season to include three world premiere musicals / October 30, 2025 by David Hwang

La Jolla Playhouse’s 2026-27 season will include four world premiere productions, as well as the West Coast premiere of Branden Jacob-Jenkins’ political family drama “Purpose,” which won both the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2025 Tony Award for Best Play.

The six-show lineup, announced Tuesday, is the final season planned by 18-year Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, who will step down at the end of this year to become artistic leader of New York City’s prestigious Roundabout Theatre Company.

Particle Fever” by David Henry Hwang, Bear McCreary and Zoe Sarnak: Inspred by the 2013 film documentary of the same name by Mark Levinson and David Kaplan, this world premiere musical will tell the story of how 10,000 international scientists came together for the launch of the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, and the amazing scientific discoveries it yielded in its initial round of experiments. It will feature a book by David Henry Hwang (“M. Butterfly,” “Yellow Face,” “Golden Child”) and score by film and television composer Bear McCreary (“Godzilla: King of Monsters”) and Zoe Sarnak (“The Lonely Few”). It will be directed by Leigh Silverman (“Suffs”). Ashley described it as a story about “what humankind is capable of when we work together. The world of science and theater should make for a beautiful production.”

YELLOW FACE Regional Premiere and More Set for Ground Floor Theatre 2026 Season / October 30, 2025 by David Hwang

The season will also include the regional premiere of Pueblo Revolt, plus more!

Ground Floor Theatre has unveiled the titles for the 2026 season including two Austin premieres, a regional premiere and a world premiere.

Premiering Off-Broadway in 2007 with a Broadway revival by Roundabout Theatre Company in 2024, Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang is a memoir based on both fact and fiction. Drawing from experiences with the 1990 Miss Saigon casting controversy, the play includes questions on race and of the interaction between culture, media, and politics with humor and warmth.

Read more at Broadway World

David Henry Hwang’s ‘Yellow Face’ to receive new publication / October 30, 2025 by David Hwang

The edition will include revisions made for the 2024 Broadway revival.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), a national nonprofit service organization for theater, will publish a new version of David Henry Hwang’s Tony Award-nominated play “Yellow Face.” Slated to be released on Nov. 11, the publication will include a preface by Hwang as well as updates made to the script for the 2024 Roundabout Theatre Company-produced Broadway revival.

“David Henry Hwang has always challenged audiences to think more deeply about the power of theater to illuminate the most complex corners of our identities,” said TCG co-executive director of national and global programming Emilya Cachapero in a statement. “This new edition of ‘Yellow Face’ gives readers the opportunity to revisit one of the most daring and insightful comedies in the contemporary canon.”

San Francisco Opera To Premiere Huang Ruo And David Henry Hwang’s THE MONKEY KING In November / October 30, 2025 by David Hwang

Running November 14–30, 2025, at the War Memorial Opera House.

San Francisco Opera will present the world premiere of The Monkey King by composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang, running November 14–30, 2025, at the War Memorial Opera House.

Commissioned by San Francisco Opera in partnership with the Chinese Heritage Foundation of Minnesota, the new work reimagines the legendary story of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King — one of the most enduring heroes in Chinese culture.

Performed in English and Mandarin, The Monkey King unites opera, dance, and puppetry to depict the mythical monkey’s quest for immortality and enlightenment as he challenges the gods of the seas and heavens. The opera is based on episodes from Journey to the West, the 16th-century Ming Dynasty novel attributed to Wu Cheng’en.

Composer Huang Ruo said, “If dreams do come true, creating The Monkey King with my long-time collaborator David Henry Hwang for San Francisco Opera is one of those dreams. The Monkey King is Asia’s supreme superhero—loved and adored not only by Chinese people throughout the centuries but increasingly by people throughout the world. In our new opera, which blends cultural traditions with a spectacular multidisciplinary production, I hope to bring this Eastern superhero to life and shine a positive light that will always appear in any turbulent time.”

Read more at Broadway World

David Henry Hwang’s YELLOW FACE (Broadway Edition) Will Be Published in November / October 30, 2025 by David Hwang

Yellow Face played a limited engagement on Broadway from September 13 through November 24, 2024 at the Todd Haimes Theatre.

Theatre Communications Group is set to publish Yellow Face (Broadway Edition) by David Henry Hwang, next month. This newly updated edition, reflecting the acclaimed 2024 Broadway revival, will be published on November 11, 2025, and is available now for pre-order.

Yellow Face played a limited engagement on Broadway from September 13 through November 24, 2024 at the Todd Haimes Theatre. Read the reviews here.

“David Henry Hwang has always challenged audiences to think more deeply about the power of theatre to illuminate the most complex corners of our identities,” said Emilya Cachapero, Co-Executive Director of National and Global Programming at TCG. “This new edition of Yellow Face gives readers the opportunity to revisit one of the most daring and insightful comedies in the contemporary canon.”

Read more at Broadway World

PEN America x San Francisco Opera Present The Rebel’s Role: The Monkey King, Mischief, and Myth / October 21, 2025 by David Hwang

Please join a lively, behind-the-scenes discussion moderated online by Ken Smith (Opera/Opera News), with composer Huang Ruo, librettist and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, and Chinese Heritage Foundation’s Pearl Lam Bergad, to dig deeper into the multiple layers of translation that bring The Monkey King (猴王悟空) to vibrant, revelatory life in this pulse-of-the-moment contemporary adaptation.

This San Francisco Opera world-premiere commission is drawn from the opening episodes in Journey to the West (16th c.), a Ming dynasty novel widely considered one of China’s greatest literary classics. The Monkey King follows the ambition of its title character, who wreaks havoc in the heavens in a bid for justice and equality, as well as belonging and freedom of expression. Join this preview of the production’s world premiere as part of San Francisco Opera’s fall 2025 season.

‘Fall of Freedom’ to Unite Artists For Nationwide Creative Resistance / October 21, 2025 by David Hwang

A number of theatre artists and institutions have signed on to this decentralized, open-sourced initiative, and are inviting others to join in resistance.

NATIONWIDE: A collective of artists is inviting galleries, museums, libraries, comedy clubs, theatres, and concert halls across the country to host exhibitions, performances, and public cultural events that channel resistance against authoritarianism in a nationwide “Fall of Freedom” movement on Nov. 21-22. Its initiators, including playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage, describe it as an “urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation, activating a nationwide wave of creative resistance.”

Theatre artists involved include playwrights David Henry Hwang, Dominique Morisseau, and Sarah Ruhl; director/organizer Annie Dorsen; and Julia Jordan of the Lillys. Theatre organizations involved include the August Wilson Center, National Black Theatre, the Public Theater, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Woolly Mammoth, New York Theatre Workshop, Ensemble Studio Theatre, En Garde Arts, Crossroads Theater Company, IndieSpace, and more.

The Greats: Glenn Close, David Henry Hwang and Tyler, the Creator / October 9, 2025 by David Hwang

From left: Joshua Woods, Hai Zhang and Luis Alberto Rodriguez

For T’s annual celebration of the people changing the culture, we profile three artists united in their dedication to taking risks.

Over the years of editing the Greats issue, I’ve noticed something that all our honorees have in common. It’s not that they somehow shifted their artistic genre (though they did); it’s not that they managed to capture, or speak to, the culture of the moment (though they did that too) — it’s the equanimity with which they look back on their earliest creative efforts. Anyone who makes art of any kind has a work (or many works) from when they were just starting to think of themselves as an artist that makes them cringe, but the people we profile tend not to dwell on these nascent attempts. Why?

The Greats: How David Henry Hwang Remade Theater in His Own Image! / October 9, 2025 by David Hwang

David Henry Hwang, photographed at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn on July 16, 2025. Credit: Hai Zhang

David Henry Hwang, Long the leading Asian American playwright, he was writing autofictional works about identity politics decades before those were cultural obsessions.

ACT I OF David Henry Hwang’s working day begins with no foreshadowing of the characters or the noise, the drama and the plot twists that may await him. Morning. Any weekday. The ground floor of a brownstone in the leafy, arty Brooklyn enclave known to its residents as Fort Greene. Hwang shares this home with the actress Kathryn Layng, his wife of more than 30 years; they have a grown son, Noah, and daughter, Eva, and a small, intermittently indignant dog, Dumpling. But when the curtain rises, he is alone in his roomy office, seated behind a desk wide enough to hold a large computer monitor and a stand for a yellow legal pad, but not deep enough to accommodate the clutter of potential distractions. He bought the desk in 2012 at an auction by the estate of Arthur Laurents, the legendarily irascible writer-director whose credits include the book for “Gypsy” (1959). Hwang never met him but loves the show. He used to wonder if Laurents would be pleased that another playwright is now using his desk. “Then I thought,” he says, “ ‘Wherever he is, he probably has other things to think about.’”

Hwang, 68, is methodical but also intuitive. He has many projects going at once and, in the absence of deadline pressure, gravitates toward whichever of them is tempting him. He has been at this long enough to know the conditions he needs to write: The beginning of the day is always best; background music is unhelpful, as is the conversational hum of a Starbucks. A private space — this private space — is essential. One wall of the office is covered with posters of his hits, his duds and his in-betweens, the brickwork of a life spent in theater. But from where he sits, he can, as long as he keeps his eyes on what’s directly in front of him, avoid having his attention diverted by all this evidence of his long history as a playwright.

The National Arts Club to honor David Henry Hwang and Moisés Kaufman / October 9, 2025 by David Hwang

Playwrights David Henry Hwang and Moisés Kaufman to receive Medal of Honor for Achievement in Theatre.

All programs and exhibitions take place at the Club’s landmark home at 15 Gramercy Park South and are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Medal of Honor for Achievement in Theater

Honoring David Henry Hwang & Moisés Kaufman
November 10 at 6 p.m.

The NAC will honor two of theatre’s most acclaimed contemporary voices—David Henry Hwang and Moisés Kaufman—with its Medal of Honor for Achievement in Theatre.

Hwang, the Tony and Grammy Award-winning author of M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Chinglish, is a three-time Obie Award recipient and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Kaufman, a 2015 National Medal of Arts recipient and Obie and Lucille Lortel Award winner, is known for The Laramie Project and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.

Read more at Broadway World