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Plays by or about Asians and/or Asian Americans
David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays FOB, Golden Child, and Yellow Face. Three of his works—M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power—have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Read more on Wikipedia.
Qui Nguyen is an American playwright, television writer, director and screenwriter. He is best known for his plays, She Kills Monsters and "Vietgone." He is also known for writing Raya and the Last Dragon and Strange World. He is also an artistic director of the Obie Award and Caffe Cino Award winning Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company, whose productions, penned and choreographed by Nguyen, have performed to sold-out audiences at the New York International Fringe Festival, been published nationally in Plays and Playwrights 2005, enjoyed extended runs throughout the nation, and have been nominated for and received awards in movement and fight direction. In 2019 he won the Porter Prize. Read more on Wikipedia.
Chay Yew is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020. Yew's breakthrough work came from his early plays Porcelain and A Language of Their Own, which, along with Wonderland, make up what Yew calls the Whitelands Trilogy. Other plays include As if He Hears; Red; A Beautiful Country; Question 27, Question 28; A Distant Shore; Vivien and the Shadows; and Visible Cities. His adaptations include A Winter People (based on Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard); and Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. Read more on Wikipedia.
- New Play ExchangeFind more scripts online using the NPX database.
- Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays byPublication Date: 2001In this volume Gerstle translates five plays—four histories and one contemporary piece—never before available in English that complement other collections of Chikamatsu's work, revealing new dimensions to the work of this great Japanese playwright and artist.
- Chinglish byPublication Date: 2012Chinglish follows a white American businessman who travels to China, desperate to score a lucrative contact for his family's firm, only to discover how much he doesn't understand.
- Mind Walking byPublication Date: 2013Bobby has led a remarkable life. Migrating from India as a young man he found love in the UK with his with wife Moira, but as a Parsi Bobby was expected to marry within the community. His family disowns him and as a result he cuts them, their religion and their culture from his life forever... until his mind starts to wander
- Mistress and Maid: Jiaohongji byPublication Date: 2001Mistress & Maid, one of the greatest tragedies of Chinese drama, is here available for the first time in English. Acclaimed translator Cyril Birch presents the bittersweet tale of Bella, daughter of the Wang family, her maid Petal, and the young scholar Shen Chun. After her father reneges on her marital pact, Bella refuses to renounce her love for Shen, with whom she has vowed to share "in life one room, in death one tomb."
- Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven & Other Plays byPublication Date: 2009Church -- Songs of the dragons flying to heaven -- Pullman, WA -- The appeal -- Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals -- Yaggoo
- Yellow Face byPublication Date: 2009In this mock-documentary play, David Henry Hwang puts himself center stage, as he uses the controversy over color-blind casting for Miss Saigon and the racially motivated federal investigation of his own father to explore Asian identity and the ever-changing definition of what it is to be an American.
Ballad of Yachiyo by Call Number: PS3557.O7934 B34 1997ISBN: 9781559361224Publication Date: 1997A dramatic tale of a young Japanese girl's sexual awakening, and ultimate social downfall, in Hawaii's harsh sugar-cane plantation system of the early twentieth century. In this moving elegy to his own aunt on whose life the story is based, Gotanda juxtaposes the world of traditional Japanese arts, such as pottery and the tea ceremony, with the conflicting social realities of a culture in transition.- Durango byCall Number: PS3603.H6 D87 2007ISBN: 9780822222170Publication Date: 2007To the outside world, the Lee boys look perfect: Isaac is on track to be a doctor, and his younger brother, Jimmy, is a champion swimmer. But when their widowed father, Boo-Seng, decides to take them on a road trip to Durango, Colorado, the carefully constructed facades of all three begin to crack.
Golden Child by Call Number: PS3558.W83 G65 1998ISBN: 9781559361583Publication Date: 1998Drawing on the life of his maternal Chinese grandmother, David Hwang invokes the age in which his great grandfather broke with Confucian tradition by converting to Christianity and unbinding his daughter's feet. Golden Child explores the impact of these momentous decisions on each of the great grandfather's three wives, and on succeeding generations.
The Hyphenated American by Call Number: PS3575.E9 H96 2002ISBN: 9780802139122Publication Date: 2002In this collection of four new plays, Yew continues to explore issues of artistic expression, self-identity, and the immigrant experience. In Red, a magical, mysterious drama set during China's Cultural Revolution, a renowned actor stands his ground against a young revolutionary in a struggle that pits politics against free expression and one generation against another. Set in New York's Chinatown, Scissors is a moving portrait of a weekly haircutting ritual between an elderly Chinese manservant and his Caucasian ex-employer. A Beautiful Country chronicles the turbulent history of Asians in America through the eyes of an immigrant drag queen, Miss Visa Denied. In Wonderland, a family working toward their American dream experiences dramatic and unexpected developments that threaten to shatter their hopes.
M. Butterfly by Call Number: PS3558.W83 M2 1988ISBN: 9780452272590Publication Date: 1988Drama about East-West relations, love, sex, and politics. French diplomat compromised by disclosure that his Chinese mistress is in actuality a male spy.- Tea byCall Number: PS3558.O8733 T43 2007ISBN: 9780822221036Publication Date: 2007Four women come together to clean the house of a fifth after her tragic suicide upsets the balance of life in their small Japanese immigrant community in the middle of the Kansas heartland. The spirit of the dead woman returns as a ghost.
Vietgone by Call Number: PS3614.G955 V54 2017ISBN: 9780573706479Publication Date: 2017An all-American love story about two very new Americans. It's 1975. Saigon has fallen. He lost his wife. She lost her fiancé. But now in a new land, they just might find each other.
