David Henry Hwang News

On Sunday, May 19, Jules Feiffer's Little Murders arrives at The New Group @ Theatre Row in a one-night-only benefit reading. Directed by Cynthia Nixon, this benefit reading features Eric Bogosian, Kevin Cahoon, John Doman, America Ferrera, Charles Grodin, Rory O'Malley, Caroline Rhea and Michael Stuhlbarg.

Victory Gardens and the One-Minute Play Festival (OMPF) present the Third Annual Chicago One-Minute Play Festival, an evening of micro-plays by sixty of Chicago's top playwrights, directed by ten Chicago directors. OMPF benefits the Miller Match campaign and will be presented for two performances only, Monday, June 17 and Tuesday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Park.

?Kumu Kahua Theatre finishes is 42nd season with the Hawai`i premiere of David Henry Hwang's Sound and Beauty, two haunting one-act plays performed together in one evening of theatre.

Viva Atlantis Theatricals Inc., whose recent maiden production was Terrence McNally and David Yazbek's Broadway musical 'The Full Monty,' officially presented to the media earlier today Broadway star Dan Domenech ('Rock of Ages,' 'Glee') and pop star Rachelle Ann Go ('Disney's The Little Mermaid,' 'Party Pilipinas'), who will play the roles of Tarzan and Jane, respectively, in the Asian premiere of Phil Collins and David Henry Hwang's Broadway musical 'Disney's Tarzan.' The post-summer production opens at Meralco Theater on Friday, June 14.

Black Lab Theatre is closing their exciting 2012-2013 season with a provocative and hilarious Regional Premiere production of David Henry Hwang's 2011 play CHINGLISH. The fresh and poignant comedy is a timely exploration of the business and economic relationship between China and the United States. As this plot is so richly layered and absorbing, I'm reluctant to say much about it for fear of ruining the miraculous experience of watching the story unfold. At the opening of the show, Daniel Cavanaugh, owner of Ohio Signage, is making a presentation for the Commerce League of Ohio about doing business in China. The plot quickly flashes back three years and recounts his first trip to China as he hopes to score a contract to make the translated signs for a new Cultural Arts Center in Guiyang, China. Within a few scenes, the audience is mesmerized by the level of duplicitous intrigue and captured in the surreptitious game of trying to determine what team all the characters are playing for.

Today in 2006, Tarzan opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, where it ran for 486 performances. Tarzan: The Musical is based on the Disney film of the same name and the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The songs are written by Phil Collins and David Zippel, with a book by David Henry Hwang. The production was nominated for a Tony award for Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Natasha Katz). The cast Featured Josh Strickland, Jennifer Gambatese, Shuler Hensley, Merle Dandridge and Chester Gregory.

The regional premiere of the Broadway hit comedy 'CHINGLISH,' by Tony Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) opens tonight, May 9th at the Asia Society Texas Center's Brown Foundation Performing Arts Theater. The famous comedy about the challenges of Americans doing business in China will be presented by Black Lab Theatre in collaboration with Asia Society Texas Center and feature a member of the original Broadway and international cast. CHINGLISH will open tonight, May 9, 2013 and run through May 26, 2013.

Silk Road Rising co-founders, Artistic Director Jamil Khoury and Executive Director Malik Gillani, present the Midwest Premiere of Jonas Hassen Khemiri's Invasion!. All performances will be presented in the company's venue in Pierce Hall at The Historic Chicago Temple Building at 77 W. Washington St. in Chicago.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) will present itsfourteenth annual All-City Musical, AIDA to crown the District's 2012-13 series of All-City Arts Programming. The production features the talents of over fifty CMSD students from across the District and will take place on the stage of the Ohio Theatre at PlayhouseSquare,May 31 - June 2, 2013. Tony Sias, Director of Arts Education for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, co-directs the production with Kimberly Brown. Aida, which features music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice, is based on the book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls and David Henry Hwang. It was originally directed on Broadway by Robert Falls and originally produced by Disney Theatrical Productions. The CMSD All-City Musical production is produced through special arrangement with Music Theater International (www.mtishows.com).

Black Lab Theatre is hard at work preparing the Regional Premiere of David Henry Hwang's CHINGLISH for Houston audiences. Recently, I visited a rehearsal at Asia Society Texas to talk to director Troy Scheid and her cast, featuring Mike Yager, Vivian Chiu, John Dunn, Xin Jian, Janice Pai Martindale, William Wu, and Andrea Huang about the show.

Bayou City Theatrics is continuing their inaugural season with Houston's first locally produced professional staging of Elton John and Tim Rice's AIDA. The musical, with a book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, was originally produced on Broadway by Disney Theatrical Productions, and ran on there from March 23, 2000 to September 5, 2004 for a total of 1,852 performances. The successes of the Broadway production lead to two national tours. The 2002-2003 equity tour served as a duplicate of the Broadway staging; however, David Henry Hwang revised the book for the 2006-2007 non-equity second national tour, creating a show that was a bit darker by removing some of the campy comedy from the character of Amneris. Having seen both tours, it seems that the version licensed by Music Theatre International is the same book used by the Broadway version.

Stageworks Theatre announces its diverse 2013-14 Season.

Tonight, April 29th, at New York City's Pierre Hotel, the National Corporate Theatre Fund (NCTF) will honor Vanessa Williams, American Express and five resident theatres celebrating their 50th anniversary - Actors Theatre of Louisville, Guthrie Theater, Hartford Stage, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Trinity Repertory Company - at NCTF's annual Chairman's Awards Gala. Actor George Takei, star of the Broadway-bound musical Allegiance, emcees the event.

East West Players (EWP), the nation's largest producing organization of Asian American artistic work and the longest-running professional theater of color in the country, announces its 48th Anniversary Season, Making Light. The season includes the classic 'Steel Magnolias' by Robert Harling, the world premiere of 'The Nisei Widows Club: How Tomi Got Her Groove Back' by Betty Tokudani, the world premiere of 'A Nice Indian Boy' by Madhuri Shekar, and the musical 'Beijing Spring,' lyrics by Tim Dang and music by Joel Iwataki. The third installation of the EVOKE New Works Festival will focus on Southeast Asian emerging artists.

The Rose Theater, one of the country's largest theaters specializing in professional productions for young audiences, will present nine shows for the 2013-14 season. Included are two world premieres, Leo Lionni's Frederick, a musical based on the popular 1968 children's book, and The Grocer's Goblin & The Little Mermaid adapted from two Hans Christen Andersen tales by Rose Playwright-in-Residence Brian Guehring and Rose Director of Youth Productions Stephanie Jacobson.

Columbia Stages will present NEW PLAYS NOW, the annual festival of new plays by emerging artists from the MFA Theatre Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. NEW PLAYS NOW will run from tonight, April 17 to May 11 and will feature original works by Paulina Barros, Keith Boynton, Talya Chalef, Angelica Cheri, Pei-Chieh Chiang, Paola Lazaro Muñoz, Alessandra Most, Christina Quintana, Torrey Townsend, and Zhao Binghao.

Tickets go on sale today for New York City Center Encores! Off-Center, a new series featuring seminal Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today's most innovative artists, opening on July 10. In keeping with City Center's founding mission to make the arts accessible to all, the majority of tickets will be $25.

Lark Play Development Center and Playwrights of New York (PoNY) have announced that Kimber Lee will be the recipient of the 2013-14 PoNY Fellowship which provides over $100,000 in comprehensive career support, including housing in the PoNY apartment in the heart of the theater district in Manhattan.

In an effort to both extend its reach and say 'mahalo' to Hawai`i educators, Kumu Kahua Theatre has been offering free preview tickets to this season's shows.

In the summer of 2012, while celebrating the success of Vintage Theater's production of 'The Joy Luck Club,' cast mates Tria Xiong and Maria Cheng sparked an idea for a new venture. After a glass of wine [or two], they realized with utter certainty, the need for an Asian American company in Colorado's theater climate, and thus, like all great wine-induced ideas, Theatre Esprit Asia (TEA) was born.