Inspired by real events, David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play, Yellow Face, follows a fictionalized version of the playwright himself as he accidentally casts a white actor to play an Asian role — shortly after protesting yellowface casting in another play. What unfolds is a biting dissection of representation, performativity, and the blurry line between real life and theater.
Yellow Face, which debuted in 2007 and was produced on Broadway in 2024 starring Daniel Dae Kim, earned an Obie Award for playwriting and was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize. Hwang was also the first Asian American to win a Tony Award for Best Play with M. Butterfly in 1988.
berkeleyside
“Miss Saigon” opened in London in 1989, with an acclaimed white British actor, Jonathan Pryce, wearing prosthetics to alter the shape of his eyes and makeup to alter the color of his skin as he played the show’s leading man, a scheming Eurasian pimp called the Engineer. But by the time the show reached Broadway in 1991, Mr. Pryce had abandoned those practices, and, after he won a Tony Award and left the show, the producers changed their approach — in the years since, they have chosen only actors of Asian heritage to play the Engineer, both on Broadway and on the United States tours.
Not every controversy has been calmed. The show’s critics, who tried and failed to stop the initial production and have periodically protested it since, say the production perpetuates an unwelcome view of Asians. Here, in edited excerpts, more than 20 people whose lives have been touched by “Miss Saigon” — as producers and protesters, artists and activists — talk about their views, then and now.
Michael Paulson – the new york times
Playwright David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwang’s stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face (revived on Broadway in 2024), Chinglish, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Aida, Soft Power, Flower Drum Song, and Disney’s Tarzan. Called America’s most produced living opera librettist, he has written thirteen libretti. Ainadamar with music by Osvaldo Golijov recently made its Metropolitan Opera premiere. Hwang was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair and is currently creating and show running a new TV series, Billion Dollar Whale. A professor at Columbia University, he serves on the boards of the American Theatre Wing, Dramatists Guild, DGF, and the Entertainment Community Fund. Hwang is a Tony Award® winner and three-time nominee, a Grammy Award winner and two-time nominee, a three-time Obie Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
director DANIEL J. ESLICK
on YELLOW FACE
This isn’t just a play about a single identity—it’s about how we perceive identity itself,” said Director, Daniel J. Eslick. “My team and I are excited to create a space where audiences can reflect on their own perceptions. ‘Asian American’ is such a complex and layered term, but Hwang offers us a vessel to begin unpacking what that really means. There are so many subplots to explore,” Eslick continued. “Failed allyship versus expected allyship, Asian-American intersectionality, political relations with China, and many more come to the forefront in Hwang’s dense text. It all brings me to the question, ‘What is Allyship.’”