Sir Jonathan Pryce is a Welsh actor who is known for his performances on stage and in film and television. He has received numerous awards, including two Tony Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards, and a knighthood for services to drama.
David Henry Hwang is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays FOB, Golden Child, and Yellow Face. Three of his works—M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power—have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Miss Saigon is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover. The setting of the plot is relocated to 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Madame Butterfly's story of marriage between an American lieutenant and a geisha is replaced by a romance between a United States Marine and a seventeen-year-old South Vietnamese bargirl.
Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer and theatre owner notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York Times. He is the producer of shows including Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, Oliver!, and Hamilton.
Wellington "Welly" Yang is a Taiwanese-American producer, actor, singer, and writer.
Portrayals of East Asians in American film and theatre has been a subject of controversy. These portrayals have frequently reflected an ethnocentric perception of East Asians rather than realistic and authentic depictions of East Asian cultures, colors, customs, and behaviors.
Francis Jue is an American actor and singer. Jue is known for his performances on Broadway, in national tours, Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area and at The Muny in St. Louis. His roles in plays and musicals range from Shakespeare to Rodgers and Hammerstein to David Henry Hwang. He is also known for his recurring role on the TV series Madam Secretary (2014–2019).
The Lisbon Traviata is a play by Terrence McNally. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 1989. It revolves around several opera fans, especially of the opera singer Maria Callas, and their gay relationships.
Golden Child is a play by American playwright David Henry Hwang. Produced off-Broadway in 1996, it was produced on Broadway in 1998. It explores an early twentieth-century Chinese family being faced with Westernization. It was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.
Asian American theatre is theatre written, directed or acted by Asian Americans. From initial efforts by four theatre companies in the 1960s, Asian-American theatre has grown to around forty groups today. Early productions often had Asian themes or settings; "yellowface" was a common medium for displaying the perceived exoticism of the East in American performance. With the growing establishment of second-generation Asian-Americans in the 21st century, it is becoming more common today to see Asian-Americans in roles that defy historical stereotypes in the United States.
Chinglish is a play by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang. It is a comedy about an American businessman desperate to launch a new enterprise in China, which opened on Broadway in 2011 with direction by Leigh Silverman.
M. Butterfly is a play by David Henry Hwang. The story, while entwined with that of the opera Madama Butterfly, is based most directly on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Peking opera singer. The play premiered on Broadway in 1988 and won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Play. In addition to this, it was a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist in 1989.
Telly Leung is an American actor, director, singer and songwriter. He is known for his work in musical theatre on Broadway and for his role as Wes, a member of the Dalton Academy Warblers on the Fox comedy-drama series Glee. In 2011, he starred in the Broadway revival of Godspell at the Circle in the Square Theatre.
In 2012, the La Jolla Playhouse in California generated nationwide controversy for the casting of a musical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's 1843 story "The Nightingale", set in ancient China. The play was part of the La Jolla Playhouse's "Page to Stage" program, a workshop series in which unfinished new works are tested and altered during the show's run. Two Asian-American actors were cast, and the remainder of the cast were African-American and Caucasian. The Asian American Theatre Community expressed their indignation on the lack of Asian-American actors cast.
Erin Quill is an American actress, writer and singer of Chinese, Welsh, and Irish descent. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Australia. She was a member of the original Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q.
Leigh Silverman is an American director for the stage, both off-Broadway and on Broadway. She was nominated for the 2014 Tony Award, Best Direction of a Musical for the musical Violet and the 2008 Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Director of a Play for the play From Up Here.
Ernesto Cloma Briones Jr., known as Jon Jon Briones, is a Filipino-American actor best known for his work in musical theatre. He was born in Quezon City, Philippines and became a United States citizen in 2010.
Eva Maria Noblezada is an American actress and singer.
Soft Power is a musical with book and lyrics by David Henry Hwang and music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori.
The Miss Saigon controversy refers to the numerous controversies that surrounded the 1989 coming-of-age stage musical Miss Saigon that arose during the show's 1990 transfer to Broadway, reaching its peak around August 1990. Afterwards, controversies surrounding the production continued throughout the early 1990s.
