Playbill celebrates Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month with a timeline of artistic milestones.
May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month. To celebrate that, Playbill has put together a timeline of all the times Asian and Asian Americans have made history on Broadway.
But first, a caveat: Theatre history can be murky. So much of it went undocumented, especially the history of BIPOC artists on Broadway. Many artists in the beginning of the century did not openly identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a person of color, due to the negative impact it could have on their careers. That is why the history of who is "first" on Broadway can be unclear at best.
1988
David Henry Hwang becomes the first Asian American playwright to be produced on Broadway with M. Butterfly. The show later goes on to win three Tony Awards, including Best Play, Best Direction (for John Dexter), and Best Featured Actor In A Play (for BD Wong). Hwang is the first Asian American playwright to win a Tony Award and Wong is the first Asian American actor to win a Tony.