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A new play by David Henry Hwang, will run as part of the Curran’s 2018 lineup. Featuring music by Jeanine Tesori, Mr. Hwang’s “Soft Power” examines Chinese-American relations in the present and future. Leigh Silverman will direct the production, which is scheduled to run from June 20 to July 8 after a premiere in Los Angeles at the Center Theater Group in May.
Read more at nytimes.com
Courtesy of EPR
Daniel Dae Kim’s 3AD production company, which is behind breakout ABC drama series The Good Doctor, is developing First Rule of Ten, based on the successful books by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay, as a television series. Kim has partnered with Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) on the project, which is set at ITV Studios America where 3AD recently signed a two-year first-look deal.
Read more at Deadline.com
The Dance and the Railroad was presented as part of Under the Sal Tree, a four-day annual theatre festival that takes place in the small, sleepy hamlet of Rampur in Goalpara, located some 200 kms west of Guwahati in India. The festival takes place outside, and The Dance and the Railroad was presented by the Inter Cultural Theatre Company of Imphal, directed by Joy Maisnam.
Read more about the festival at TheHindu.com.
photo by Lia Chang
Nearly 30 years after its debut, M. Butterfly is back: A new revival, featuring an updated script by Hwang and direction from Julie Taymor, debuted on Broadway on Thursday. Though much of the story remains the same, the America of 2017 — one in which Donald Trump is president and conversations about race and ethnic identity dominate the national discourse — has changed. So, too, has the world, one in which China's ascendance to superpower status was scarcely assured in 1988.
Asia Blog recently caught up with Hwang to talk gender, ethnic identity, and explore why the election of President Trump has given M. Butterfly fresh relevance.
Read the interview at asiasociety.org.
The cast of Slow Burn Theatre's “Tarzan The Stage Musical” in the Amaturo Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, performing from through Nov. 5.
(Rodrigo Balfanz/Courtesy)
Slow Burn Theatre Company stages the venue's first sensory-friendly performance in Fort Lauderdale at the Broward Center. The adaptive production of "Tarzan The Stage Musical" is specially designed for individuals with sensory processing and autism spectrum disorders.
It will include special seating arrangements, pre-curtain preparatory activities, modifications to stage and auditorium lighting, lower sound volumes and the use of noise-cancelling devices as well as the availability of a quiet room for those experiencing sensory overload.
Read more at Sun-Sentinel.com
Photo by Tom Millward
The New York Theatre Guide recently caught up with Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Clive Owen. The British actor is currently starring as Rene Gallimard in the first-ever Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning play M. Butterfly, directed with a stylized, Brechtian touch by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor. Mr. Owen made his Broadway debut in September 2015 as Deeley in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of Harold Pinter's Old Times at the American Airlines Theatre. We were curious to find out what keeps bringing him back to the stage and how he developed the intimate connection with his co-star Jin Ha...
Read the interview at NewYorkTheatreGuide.com
Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic - From left, playwright David Henry Hwang, Jin Ha, director Julie Tamor and Clive Owen
M. Butterfly has transformed for a new generation.
The first major New York revival of the Tony-winning play stars Clive Owen as a married French diplomat who has a 20-year relationship with a beautiful opera performer who spies on him for the Chinese government. Directed by Julie Taymor, the staging has an updated script by original playwright David Henry Hwang.
“It’s an amazing play, but it was written 30 years ago and things have changed,” Clive Owen told The Hollywood Reporter after Thursday’s opening night performance at the Cort Theatre. “It’s still a story about two people who created a world for themselves that worked for them, and when it became public, everything came crashing down and they were vilified. The heart of the play is still there — it had a huge impact and hopefully it still will.”
Read more at Hollywoodreporter.com
Clive Owen, left, and Jin Ha in "M. Butterfly." Photo Credit: Josef Astor
"Nearly 30 years later, after turning down various offers to revive it, Hwang has updated the script, and a new production — directed by Julie Taymor (“The Lion King”) and starring Clive Owen as the diplomat, Gallimard — will open at the Cort Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 26."
Read more at Newsday.com
Clive Owen as a French diplomat in the Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang’s “M. Butterfly.” Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Read Laura Collins-Hughes interview with David Henry Hwang about the revival of his Broadway hit M. Butterfly, directed by Julie Taymor, starring Clive Owen.
From the New York Times
Silk Road Rising (Chief Programming Officer and Mission Trustee, Jamil Khoury and Founding Executive Director, Malik Gillani) is proud to announce the U.S. Premiere of Wild Boar, written by Candace Chong, translated from Chinese to English by Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith, adapted by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, and directed by Helen Young. The production will run November 9th to December 17th, 2017 at Silk Road Rising located at 77 W. Washington St., Lower Level, Chicago, IL, 60602. The Press Opening is Saturday, November 18th at 4:00pm.
"We love Wild Boar not only because it's smart, sexy, and topical, but because, in a rare combination, it exudes both confidence and self-doubt simultaneously. It builds and unpacks all at once, seemingly unable to differentiate right from wrong without flip-flopping, which is part of the play's inherent strength. At a time when journalism, governance, nation-states, and citizenship all feel in flux, Wild Boar probes those feelings with an air of mystery, flirtatiousness, and whodunit intrigue. " - Chief Programming Officer and Mission Trustee, Jamil Khoury
Read more at Broadwayworld.com
Photo of English opera Dream of the Red Chamber, Photograph by Luo Wei, Guang Ming Daily.
Dream of the Red Chamber is the pinnacle of Chinese literature. But in fact, not many people in the western world have ever heard of it. In a certain sense, this opera is following a grand opera tradition, which began with Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Turandot, by blending eastern and western cultures. Before the English opera Dream of the Red Chamber, when people talk about Chinese-themed opera, they always first think about Turandot and the music Jasmine in that opera. Of course, the DaGuanYuan (Grand View Garden) in the English opera Dream of the Red Chamber is very different from the imagined Oriental world in Puccini's operas.
"In the 19th century of the western world, artists put the Oriental elements from their imagination into their works that were dominated by western values," says the playwright, David Henry Hwang. "But in our work, at least, we treat Chinese and western culture equally. Our work is not a hodgepodge, but a music work with distinctive features."
In the past 30 years, at least two TV shows have been adapted from Dream of the Red Chamber. "The popularity of the 1987 version of Dream of the Red Chamber in China is like BBC’s 1996 version of Pride and Prejudice (in the western world). It's certainly not a bad thing to have people re-discuss the novel because of an opera, in that way many people who have never heard of it now know it.” Hwang said, "It is important to let the world hear the aria of Baoyu."
Read more at Guang Ming Daily.
M. Butterfly co-stars Clive Owen and Jin Ha, photographed in London.Photograph by Julian Broad.
"The succès de scandale of the 1988–89 Broadway season, David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly tells of a French diplomat whose politically ill-advised affair with an androgynous performer in the Chinese opera takes him places he never imagined, including prison. Deftly exploring Western stereotyping of Asians, M. Butterfly won the 1988 Tony Award for best play and ran for an astonishing 777 performances."
Read more at Vanityfair.com
The Tony-winning director transforms David Henry Hwang’s play physically and emotionally for its first Broadway revival.
Read the full story at Playbill.com.
Scene from the English language opera Dream of the Red Chamber Photo: Courtesy of Armstrong Music & Arts-ZEXI
The star-studded English language opera that enchanted San Francisco around this time last year, Dream of the Red Chamber, kicked off its Chinese mainland premiere in Beijing on Friday, returning to the city where the story was first written and published.
Based on the 18th century epic of the same name written by Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) writer Cao Xueqin, the two-act opera was supported by the Minnesota-based Chinese Heritage Foundation and created by a group of prominent Chinese and Chinese-American artists, including MacArthur Fellow Bright Sheng as composer, Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang as co-librettist along with Sheng, Stan Lai as director and Oscar winner Tim Yip as costume and stage designer.
Imported by the Hong Kong-based Armstrong Music & Arts and the Poly Theater to the Chinese mainland, the show will tour to Changsha and Wuhan, the capital cities of Central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces, over the next two weeks following Beijing.
Find out more at globaltimes.cn
Beyond Words: An Evening to Benefit Princeton Public Library takes place this year on Saturday, Nov. 4. Acclaimed playwright, screenwriter and librettist David Henry Hwang will open the event with a talk at 6 p.m. at Nassau Presbyterian Church. Cocktails, dinner and a silent auction follow at the Library.
At Beyond Words, Hwang will speak on "Transformations of a Butterfly: Identity and Creativity in America Today."
Beyond Words is one of the major fundraising events undertaken each year by the Friends of the Princeton Public Library who work to support the library's materials, public programming and community outreach.
Find out more at NJ.com
Silk Road Rising is proud to announce the U.S. Premiere of Wild Boar, written by Candace Chong, translated from Chinese to English by Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith, adapted by Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang, and directed by Helen Young. The production will run November 9th to December 17th, 2017 at Silk Road Rising.
Find out more at Broadwayworld.com
