The PlayFinder™

In a Los Angeles S&M parlor, a dominatrix and her client are clad head-to-toe in leather costumes that conceal their faces and ethnicities. These elaborate disguises allow them to play out fantasies based on racial stereotypes and sexual mythologies: She pretends to be an African-American woman to his white, liberal man; he transforms into an Asian-American and she into a blond WASP, etc. Exchanging biting social observations with stinging humor, they progress through their pow... Read more

CHINGLISH is a hilarious comedy about the challenges of doing business in a country whose language—and underlying cultural assumptions—can be worlds apart from those of the West. The play tells the adventures of Daniel, an American business-everyman from the Midwest, who hopes to establish his family's sign-making business in China, only to learn what is lost and found in translation.... Read more

While his fellow workers are striking for higher pay, Lone, once an actor in China, exercises and practices alone on a mountaintop the ritual gestures used in Chinese opera. Ma, a slightly younger man, who wishes to become an actor, approaches him. Lone spurns him and insults the naive young man, but Ma returns day after day, eventually convincing Lone to train him as an actor. As Lone trains Ma in the ways of the Chinese opera, he also heaps a good deal of abuse on him, trying... Read more

The Dance and the Railroad. While his fellow workers are striking for higher pay, Lone, once an actor in China, exercises and practices alone on a mountaintop the ritual gestures used in Chinese opera. Ma, a slightly younger man, who wishes to become an actor, approaches him. Lone spurns him and insults the naive young man, but Ma returns day after day, eventually convincing Lone to train him as an ... Read more

Ama and Popo, two elderly and devoutly Christian Chinese sisters, escaped with their family from China just before the Communist revolution. Their younger brother, Di-Gou, however, believed in the revolution, and returned to China. The two curmudgeonly sisters now live in Bel Air, California, with their daughters, Joanne and Hannah, and their daughters' prosperous husbands, Wilbur and Robert. The married couples have completely embraced some of the worst aspects of being Americ... Read more

FOB is told in a style that moves quickly between myth and reality, with the characters occasionally speaking directly to the audience. Grace and Dale are cousins, living in the Los Angeles area and attending college. Dale is fully American, second generation. Grace is first generation and holds the customs of China in higher regard. The arrival of Steve, an exchange student and a newcomer from China, fresh off the boat, forces them to confront a number of conflicting feelings ... Read more

FOB is told in a style that moves quickly between myth and reality, with the characters occasionally speaking directly to the audience. Grace and Dale are cousins, living in the Los Angeles area and attending college. Dale is fully American, second generation. Grace is first generation and holds the customs of China in higher regard. The arrival of Steve, an exchange student and a newcomer from Chi... Read more

In the winter of 1918, progressive Chinese landowner Eng Tieng-Bin's interest in Westernization and Christianity sets off a power struggle among his three wives, which will determine the future of his daughter, Ahn, Tieng-Bin's favorite, his "golden child."... Read more

A well-known novelist, Kawabata, visits a brothel in order to learn why older men frequent it. However this establishment is quite different from what he expected. Here the men simply sleep in the same bed with the beautiful young women provided, and the women never awaken or see them. The madam who runs the home carefully screens all of her potential guests and only accepts men who she deems worthy. Kawabata intends to write about the house, but slowly falls under its spell an... Read more

Recipient of the 1988 Tony Award® for Best Play.

THE STORY: Bored with his routine posting in Beijing, and awkward with women, Rene Gallimard, a French diplomat, is easy prey for the subtle, delicate charms of Song Liling, a Chinese opera star who personifies Gallimard's fantasy vision of submissive, exotic oriental sexuality. He begins an affair with "her" that lasts for twenty years, during which time he passes along diplomatic secrets, an act that, eventually, brings on his do... Read more

When M. Butterfly premiered in 1988, its remarkable story of international espionage and personal betrayal solidified its status as a modern classic. Based on the real-life affair between a French diplomat and a mysterious Chinese opera singer, it blurred the boundaries between male and female, East and West. For the 2017 Broadway Revival Version, Hwang has incorporated new material inspired by details of the relationship that have emerged since the play first seduced au... Read more

The scene is an isolated house in the woods where a beautiful young woman lives alone. When a young samurai appears she offers him food and shelter, and when he decides to stay on they eventually become lovers. But while fascinated by his benefactress, the samurai cannot shake a superstitious mistrust of her; for all her delicacy and beauty she is also able to perform wonders of cookery, horticulture and even the martial arts (much to his wounded pride). In the end it develops ... Read more

Lost on his way to Chinatown, Benjamin asks Ronnie for directions. Ronnie, playing his violin on the street for money, is offended that just because he looks like an Asian he automatically knows where Chinatown is. Caucasian looking, Benjamin was adopted by an Asian-American family at birth. He revels in his heritage and is looking for the house where his father was born. Ronnie, on the other hand, throws himself into all things American and finds it hard to sympathize with Ben... Read more

Trying to Find Chinatown. Lost on his way to Chinatown, Benjamin asks Ronnie for directions. Ronnie, playing his violin on the street for money, is offended that just because he looks Asian he automatically knows where Chinatown is. Caucasian looking, Benjamin was adopted by an Asian-American family at birth. He revels in his heritage and is looking for the house where his father was born. Ronnie, o... Read more

The lines between truth and fiction blur with hilarious and moving results in David Henry Hwang's unreliable memoir. Asian-American playwright DHH, fresh off his Tony Award win for M. Butterfly, leads a protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon, condemning the practice as "yellowface." His position soon comes back to haunt him when he mistakes a Caucasian actor, Marcus G. Dahlman, for mixe... Read more