Professor David Henry Hwang Honored with Playwrights’ Sidewalk Star

Playwriting Concentration Head and Associate Professor David Henry Hwang has been named this year’s Playwrights’ Sidewalk Inductee as part of the Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. 

Hwang’s name will be added to a star on the sidewalk outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street, in downtown Manhattan––a permanent monument to Off-Broadway playwrights. 

The news follows a string of recent accomplishments for Hwang, whose stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power. He is set to lead the screenplay for a new Anna May Wong biopic, starring Gemma Chan; and his new opera, The Rift, is set to premiere as part of the Washington National Opera’s Written in Stone program for the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary celebration.  

David was featured last year in our series, This is Who We Are, where he spoke with Writing Fellow, Amanda Breen, about his writing projects and the power of authenticity in art. 

David Henry Hwang is a playwright, screenwriter, television writer, and librettist whose stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Elton John & Tim Rice’s Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang made history in 1988 as the first Asian American playwright to win a Tony Award. Since then, he has been nominated for three other Tony awards. He is a three-time OBIE Award winner, a Grammy winner and two-time nominee, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Opera News called him America’s most-produced living opera librettist, and he co-wrote the Gold Record Solo with the late pop star Prince. From 2015-2019, Hwang was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair. His screenplays include Possession, M. Butterfly, and Golden Gate. He is currently penning the live-action musical feature adaptation of Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.