Playwriting professor David Henry Hwang’s Obie-award-winning play, Yellow Face, is headed to Broadway in a new Roundabout Theatre Company production premiering September at the Todd Haimes Theatre. The production marks Hwang’s ninth Broadway show.
Based on the controversy that surrounded the 1991 production of Miss Saigon, when white British actor Jonathan Price was cast as the Engineer, a Eurasian character, the play centers around a fictional version of Hwang, DHH, as he mounts his 1993 play Face Value, based on the controversy. DHH begins Yellow Face protesting the use of yellowface in Miss Saigon, but finds himself embroiled in conflict when he accidentally casts a white actor in a lead Asian role in his own play.
Both a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of an Obie Award, Yellow Face was originally developed at the Mark Taper Forum in association with East West Players in 2007, before moving to the Public Theater later that year. The current version of the play is directed by Tony-award-nominee Leigh Silverman who also directed the play’s first off-Broadway run at the Public, and stars Daniel Dae Kim as DHH.
"We are excited to explore what Yellow Face has to say today about race, identity, and performance: what has changed about our world since 2007 and what has not,” Hwang said. “We believe the play will be funnier nowadays to audiences, who are so much more familiar with the issues at the heart of this comedy."
Learn more about the production and purchase tickets when they become available here.
