Yellow Face
by David Henry Hwang

“A pungent play of ideas with a big heart.

Yellow Face brings to the national discussion about race a sense of humor a mile wide, an even-handed treatment and a hopeful, healing vision of a world that could be.Ӊ Variety

“Charming, touching, and cunningly organized as well as funny, [with] an Ibsenite reach and stature far beyond any issues of Hwang’s self-image.”â The Village Voice

“It’s about our country, about public image, about face

,” says David Henry Hwang about his latest work, a mock documentary that puts Hwang himself center stage as it explores both Asian identity as well as race in America.

The play begins with the 1990s controversy over color-blind casting for Miss Saigon

, before it spins into a comic fantasy, in which the character DHH pens a play in protest and then unwittingly casts a white actor as the Asian lead.

Yellow Face also explores the real-life investigation of Hwang’s father, the first Asian American to own a federally chartered bank, and the espionage charges against physicist Wen Ho Lee.

Adroitly combining the light touch of comedy with weighty political and emotional issues, “Hwang’s lively and provocative cultural self-portrait lets nobody off the hook” (

The New York Times

). David Henry Hwang is the author of the Tony Award–winning M. Butterfly

, a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize.

Other plays include Golden Child

, FOB

, The Dance and the Railroad

, and Family Devotions

; his opera libretti include three works for composer Philip Glass.

He was appointed by President Clinton to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.