Art is both a reflection of culture and a way to inspire culture to evolve. The Academy of Visual and Performing Arts at Culver City High School has chosen a play and brought in a professional company to collaborate on a landmark play that does both.
"Yellow Face" blurs the lines between fact and fiction in the same way that stereotypes blur the truth in matters of race, personal identity and cultural authenticity. The play asks provocative questions about racial identity and, on another level, examines the social biases, both casual and institutionalized, that target Asian Americans and, indeed, any outsider to mainstream American culture.
"David Henry Hwang's Tony-award winning Yellow Face is a comedic satire that features the complex emotions that are involved when talking about race in America," said teaching artist and guest director Stephanie Lee. "But what Hwang does so brilliantly is marry this complex issue with comedy so that the audience can sit in a theater and laugh together. To quote Hwang during his 2014 interview with Propeller TV, 'Laughter opens your mind and allows you to think about new things.'"