David Henry Hwang to Receive 2025 Impact Award From Playwrights Foundation
The award will be presented at Playwrights Foundation’s Constellations 47th Birthday Benefit in San Francisco at the Verdi Club on Monday, July 21, 2025.
By: Josh Sharpe Jun. 02, 2025
Playwrights Foundation, the West Coast’s premier launchpad for exceptional new plays and playwrights, will honor Tony and Pulitzer Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (Yellow Face, M. Butterfly) with the 2025 Impact Award in recognition of his theatrical achievements and profound influence on current and rising generations of writers.
The organization’s 2025 Launch Award will be given to Dan Wolf, a recent alum of the organization’s Resident Playwrights Program and a multi-disciplinary theatermaker changing the future through his internationally recognized historical remembrance work with young artists.
The awards will be presented at Playwrights Foundation’s Constellations 47th Birthday Benefit in San Francisco at the Verdi Club on Monday, July 21, 2025 with memorable presentations from each of our honorees. Tickets range from $75-$2,500 and can be purchased here.
ABOUT David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwang, most recently represented on Broadway with the critically acclaimed revival of Yellow Face starring Daniel Dae Kim, is a Tony, Grammy and three-time OBIE Award winner, as well as a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. His stage works includes the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, Chinglish, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Aida, Flower Drum Song, Disney’s Tarzan, and Soft Power. Hwang is currently working on the new musical Particle Fever, based on the 2013 documentary about the largest scientific experiment ever undertaken.
Hwang has written fourteen opera libretti, with Opera News calling him America’s most-produced living opera librettist. Recent premieres include Ainadamar, An American Soldier, Circus Days and Nights, The Rift, and M. Butterfly. His new opera, The Monkey King, will receive its World Premiere at San Francisco Opera this fall. He also co-wrote the Gold Record Solo in 1994 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.
Recent honors include his 2022 induction onto the Lucille Lortel Playwrights Sidewalk, an Honorary Doctorate (his seventh) from California State University in 2022, his 2021 election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and his 2018 induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Hwang has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 1979 and also serves on the Council of the Guild. He is a Trustee of the American Theatre Wing, which he Chaired from 2016-2021.
ABOUT DAN WOLF
Dan Wolf is an artist who fuses rap, theater, history, and personal narrative to illuminate the complexities of our world. His performances integrate hip-hop aesthetics with traditional theater, creating multi-sensory experiences that challenge and engage audiences.
For the past 14 years, he has expanded his global impact through Sound in the Silence, a remembrance project that transforms historical memory into live performance at memorial sites. His play Currency reimagines Shylock through the lens of modern immigrant and working-class struggles. In 2024, his hip-hop opera Beatbox: A Raparetta, co-written with GRAMMY® winner Tommy Soulati Shepherd, was produced by Ensemble Theatre Company in Houston. His latest work, The Bag, co-written with his hip-hop ensemble Felonious, is commissioned by Aurora Theatre Company and is a finalist for Berkeley Rep’s 2025 Ground Floor.
From theaters and concert halls to schools and museums, Wolf’s work uses history as a catalyst for urgent storytelling. He brings communities together through the raw power of hip-hop and theater, ensuring that the past informs and inspires the present. He is the co-founder of Felonious and Bay Area Theatre Cypher, a board member of the Playwrights Foundation, an alum of Playwrights Foundation’s Resident Playwright Program, and a member of both the Recording Academy and Actors Equity Association.
ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS FOUNDATION
Playwrights Foundation, led by Executive Artistic Director Jessica Bird Beza, was founded in 1978 and is widely recognized as one of the top playwright service organizations and new play incubators in the U.S., dedicated to supporting and championing playwrights’ artistic growth and careers while uplifting their voices on a national level. PF envisions a future where playwrights are radically centered as visionary leaders who transform the world through storytelling. Serving emerging and mid-career playwrights from the Bay Area and around the country, PF has identified over 500 exceptional writers early in their careers and given them space, time and professional artistic collaborators to explore new theatrical ideas free from the pressures of the marketplace for more than 45 years.
Playwrights PF has worked with have won every award in the theater including the Pulitzer, the Tony, the Obie, the National Critics Circle Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Award, and many more. On its 40th Anniversary, Playwrights Foundation was recognized with a Theatre Bay Area Legacy Award for its substantial impact on the field. PF has received two Glickman Awards for best new play to premiere in the Bay Area through its Producing Partnership Initiative. Among the many PF-developed works that have premiered across the country are Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Jihae Park’s Hannah and the Dread Gazebo, Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists, Lauren Yee’s King of the Yees, Madhuri Shekar’s House of Joy, Mike Lew’s Teenage Dick, and Mona Mansour’s We Swim, We Talk, We Go To War, and many more.
Photo Credit: Bruce Glikas
San Francisco / Bay Area Awards - Live Stats
Best Musical - Top 3
1.
URINETOWN (Ghostlight Theatre Ensemble)
16.7% of votes
2.
THE DAY THE SKY TURNED ORANGE (San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company / Z Space)
9.3% of votes
3.
SWEENEY TODD (Cabrillo Stage)
8.3% of votes
Videos