Conrad Ricamora in rehearsal for the "Soft Power." (Photo by Joan Marcus. Photographed at New 42nd Street Studios.)
Why is he doing ‘Soft Power’ in New York while filming ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ in Los Angeles? Because he finally gets to play the hero.
In the early 2000s, actor Conrad Ricamora was playing a Chinese character in a local community theatre production of Anything Goes. During the first week of rehearsal, the director asked him, “Can you be more Chinese?” Ricamora is half Filipino, half white.
Starring in Soft Power at the Public Theater (through Nov. 17). A new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, Ricomara also starred in Soft Power last year in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He plays Xuē Xíng, a Chinese entertainment producer who wants David Henry Hwang (played by Francis Jue) to write a musical about China that can play on Broadway. The country is after soft power, something America has in spades, which Xuē defines as “our ideas, inventions, culture,” which can “change the way people think.”