Archives for posts with tag: musical

Happier Ending, thanks to TONY Nominee, Conrad Ricamora!

July 27, 2025 //

The Fairy Princess knows the Broadway AANHPI Community is hurting about the decision to cast a non-Asian performer into a role that had been originated on Broadway by an Asian descended performer.

No matter how much they ‘whitesplain’ this decision – and here are some examples:

  1. The character is a robot. Robots are ordered, anyone can order any kind of robot they want.
  2. In previous workshops the casting was all over the place and they tried many different scenarios for who was to be the robot
  3. Asians are gatekeeping

TFP is not going to dwell on those examples, nor address them because…they are toxic.

Producers can choose to say what they want, and they can even order the cast to go along with this but here is what is being set up by a show that won, in part, for it’s diversity.

TFP has spent the last 14 years writing about diversity for AANHPIs and to see this happen makes her want to…

However TFP thought she would point out that TONY NOMINEE CONRAD RICAMORA of STAGE, TELEVISION, and FILM has decided he is investing in education.

Specifically he is funding a scholarship for AANHPI MALES pursuing a BFA or MFA in Theater – sorry ladies, but they have not made Claire white, yet – called ‘THE RIGHT TO BE THERE: A scholarship for Asian American Male Actors”

He is beginning the fund with $5K of his own money, and then will match other donations up to the first $10,000. Even if you do not believe in you, AANHPIs, even if your Family, and the Industry has quite clearly decided that the world does not need you – CONRAD RICAMORA thinks it does.

TFP does as well.

See who else ‘liked’ his post – go take a look, THE QUEEN.

Just sayin’

Here is why TFP cares so much – she has a son.

He deserves to see himself represented. He deserves to sit at a show and see a variation of himself as a dynamic lead. TFP‘s son is of mixed Korean descent, (although he is looking like he could play DDK’s son in that photo) and he was absolutely looking forward to seeing MAYBE HAPPY ENDING – and when he heard the new casting announced on Sirius Broadway XM, he yelled, “Wait – isn’t that part Asian?“

We will not be going to see MHE until there is an AANHPI male in the role. We are choosing to vote with our ticket sales. After all, Mommy saw it that way, and she wishes her son to see it ‘that way’. The whole point of bringing her kid to theater is for him to have an authentic sense of self.

By the way – for those who have stated that this casting ‘is only 9 weeks’ or who have, because of employment issues, needed to react positively to this news on social media….ok.

That’s your view, that we are all ‘post-racial’.

If the show was really post-racial, then it would have never been set in South Korea. An actual place.

If the show was really post-racial then there would be no need to use Asian names or places.

If the show was really post-racial then Jeju Island and the Love Hotel and all the dialogue – “He looks like James, oh he looks like James, he looks like James too” – would not take a seemingly racial turn if anyone of any background spoke it.

It’s funny because Oliver is AANHPI. That is the reason that joke is charming, if he is not AANHPI it becomes…troublesome.

We do not live in a post-racial world.

TFP does not carry a color copy of her passport and have her son do the same because the world in which we now live is post racial. She did not have to get Global Entry and carry it everywhere she goes to further prove she is a US citizen, because the world, the New York, the United States she lives in is a post racial beacon of love and kindness.

We have an invasive cancer in our country right now, and this casting is the first small freckle of melanoma that we are seeing in a while – mostly, theater has been ‘ok’ for a bit – people seemed to be getting it, that ‘representation matters’, and while not everyone was on board with that – most people were, and it was so nice. It was a nice feeling.

AANHPI Theater no longer has that feeling.

It’s so bad, Playwright, Lauren Yee had to arrange for a Community night!

Thank you Lauren and Signature Theater for hosting.

Pretty soon, the role of Claire will also be played by a Non Asian.

Of course it will.

It will start with Broadway, and then as it goes down the chain and is licensed out, Claire will be blonde. That’s why her name is Claire.

The audience is being prepped to expect this because even though the Producers acknowledge the beauty and strength and appeal of having an AANHPI Cast, and legitimately used DEI talking points in their TONY Award campaign, it seemed there was always an intention to not use an AANHPI casting

Even after a tremendous development process that included workshops and productions outside of the USA the writers decided that the best way to tell the story was with Claire and Oliver being ‘AANHPI coded”

Which is TFP’s point – because it does not make sense that people from a homogenous culture who are looking to put robots in place of family members to care for them would choose to pick robots that looked like an entirely different group – the producers are still going to do it.

Because…

Will it serve the story?

The only way we will know is ticket sales. The audience will buy in or it will not.

However do not lose hope – because even as much as the world has the new embattled Superman, full of flaws and choosing honor – AANHPI America has Conrad Ricamora.

Right now, Conrad Ricamora is ‘our’ Superman. Another Mixed Race Asian Actor who is succeeding, and leaving the door open for those coming behind him.

It is beautiful to see, particularly now.

CONRAD RICAMORA GIF PACK – @sophiexrph on Tumblr

And TFP will TAKE IT!

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Categories Diversity

Not so Happy about this Ending…dammit

July 24, 2025 //

The Fairy Princess got up this morning to find that the Producers of Maybe Happy Ending, the TONY Award winning production of MAYBE HAPPY ENDING, which is set in Seoul, Korea – intends to replace Darren Criss, who is of Asian descent, with Andrew Barth Feldman – who is an Evan from Dear Evan Hansen, and in, in real life, the boyfriend of Helen J. Shen, who stars in this show.

(They made that part of the marketing, which is the only reason TFP mentions it)

Was Zach Piser (star of KPOP the musical, and a Broadway Evan Hansen, & recently closed on Bway, REDWOOD) not available?

It is giving – for those of you who know TFP is Australian, real throwback vibes of the Sydney Opera House production of The King & I, starring Lisa McCune and HER then boyfriend, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, as The King of Siam. Teddy was not Asian. Teddy is still not Asian. He teaches now in Adelaide.

Anyway, TFP wrote about it and then they replaced him with Lou Diamond Phillips, and then when LDP hurt his foot – he was replaced by Jason Scott Lee. Both Mr. Philips and Mr. Lee are of Asian descent.

It was whitewashing then, and it is whitewashing now.

Look, there are some kickass people in Maybe Happy Ending, and Helen J. Shen is one of them – so this is not to come down on ANY of the Actors in the show.

Actors go where they are hired, and right now, the Producers have made this decision to hire a non Asian-descended actor to replace an Asian descended actor – when there is LEGIT AANHPH TALENT ALL OVER BROADWAY!

Has folks feeling all…

However the tone deafness of this casting is particularly painful because:

  1. The show has been touted for it’s casting
  2. This upcoming Broadway season does not, as of yet – seem to have ANY AANHPI leads other than Keanu Reeves, and that is only if you can afford the $150-$950 tickets now available for WAITING FOR GODOT – so frankly, Maybe Happy Ending is ‘it’ for representation right now
  3. AANHPIs just had a remarkable winning TONY season, and now, poof – it goes away just like that
  4. Maybe Happy Ending does not need ‘stars’ – it doesn’t. Whoever plays Oliver becomes, de facto, a Broadway star.

Again, was Zach Piser busy? Cuz…

Ahem.

(No, Zach Piser has no idea TFP is throwing his hat into the ring for this show, it is without his consent, and one should acknowledge that – he is a suggestion based on Mr. Criss and who could replace him, and fulfill all the requirements – particularly having lead a Broadway cast before and having a fan base.)

TFP thinks replacing Darren Criss, who is a mixed Asian descended Actor with someone like Zach Piser, ALSO a mixed Asian descended Actor who has been on Broadway and headlined shows – truth be told the VERY SAME show that Mr. Feldman headlined, would have been a…stronger choice.

TFP was not going to randomly throw out names, however…perhaps she should..now these names are not specifically Korean – because we do not segregate on Broadway and TFP is against any kind of ‘blood quantum’ aspect of an AANHPI Actor excluding themselves from a role based on where one’s grandparents come from.

However she will throw out names – all have been in Broadway shows, all have had great reviews and impact and are very talented – and this is a few, not ALL –

However – and you can look them up:

Michael K. Lee, Kelvin Moon Loh, Marc delaCruz, Raymond J. Lee, Telly Leung, Kevin Woo, Eddy Lee, Conrad Ricamora, Timothy H. Lee, Kennedy Kanagawa, Abraham Lim, Joshua Lee, James Kho, Jinwoo Jung, John Yi etc, etc, etc…

They all should have been considered, because the show really does not make sense with a non AANHPI Helper Bot.

It just does not make sense.

The show takes place in a semi-distant future in Seoul.

Seoul is in South Korea.

Do we really need to go to one of TFP‘s parlor tricks and pull out a map?

FFS

See, that’s Korea – and it is located in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea – right below it is Japan. In between Japan and South Korea, specifically Seoul is Jeju Island – which plays a major part in the storyline. The Helper Bots drive a car from Seoul to the ferry at Jeju to see the fireflies.

However as performed, this show has always had AANHPI people in the lead roles of Oliver and Claire.

Despite where it is set, there IS a ‘white guy”.

Yes there is one role, Gil Brently, played by Dez Duron who is an amalgam of a white jazz pop singers like Frank Sinatra, like Dean Martin, like Michael Bublè – that is where we see ‘white representation’. In a show set in South Korea. ENTIRELY set in South Korea.

Otherwise the cast is entirely AANHPI – and it has been that way since the show opened and won TONY Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction, Best Book, Best Score – yadda yadda, Congratulations on all of that…

TFP is a HUGE FAN of all the cast of MAYBE HAPPY ENDING.

She will share a photo now to acknowledge the HUGE PERSONAL RISK she is taking in writing about this at all, because this is NOT an attack on any of the actors coming in to the show, or currently in the show.

It is not right to ignore it either – and kudos to the Producers for shooting TFP’s BP right into the stratosphere with this announcement.

TFP thinks what happened is an ‘accident’ of proximity – there is a Broadway actor, he is around all the time, there is a role the Producers need to fill for 9 weeks – 2 months and a week, and they figure, “Why not?” – after all vocally it is a match and this is the point that TFP thinks it hung on:

Helper Bots are not an ‘actual thing’, they are a made up thing, and Helper Bots are something people in this musical ‘order for purchase’, so yes, ostensibly these South Korean owners – these South Korean owners of the Helper Bots ‘could’ order a non-Korean appearing robot.

To serve all needs in a very Korean household.

Because there is nothing Koreans from Korea like more than diaspora in their homes….

Helper Bots are clearly a South Korean ‘thing’ because the owners that they show of these robots are of South Korean Descent. There has been a climate issue or climate crisis, and that is affecting how people are able to live without assistance, it could also be post the 4B movement in Korea which results population decline. The writers do not ‘spell it out’, but clearly, there is an issue there.

That is their background, and here are who plays the ‘owners’ of these Helper Bots – Arden Cho, who is killing it now as the voice of Rumi in KPOP Demon Hunters on Netflix, is Helper Bot Claire’s owner.

Marcus Choi is Helper Bot Oliver’s owner.

So while TFP can almost ‘hear’ what the justification is for this casting, she thinks that it does not fulfill the the classic way in which actors/directors break down a piece – which is:

WHO – who is this character including physical description, likes, dislikes, cultural background

WHAT – what is the circumstance in which this character is appearing

WHEN – when in the time of the show, when in the time of the writer’s career, and when specifically in the character’s life is this happening

WHERE – physical location generally and then, specifically, and then nuances – in his apartment, in the kitchen, at noon…etc

WHY – why today? Why this moment? Why is whatever happening, why is it happening now?

HOW– How did they get to this point, in the show, in the moment

Now, there have been quotes from the creative team, so there is nothing to be done, except reiterate that this casting does not make sense to TFP, but she can only assume they wanted to use the real life element to propel ticket sales, which, hey – it’s not show friendship, it is show business.

Also, folks may be angry with one of the creators signing off on this- Hue Park, but TFP wants to remind everyone that Creatives who come from a mostly homogeneous country do not travel outside their country with the intent of ‘representing’ for, in this case, AANHPIs.

We have seen this again and again from Filmmakers and Writers of the Asian diaspora- so this should not be a surprise- just an oddly familiar disappointment.

‘We’ cannot honestly be that angry with Mr. Park because he is not going to ‘get ‘ it- and, one supposes we should not expect him to- although he did study at NYU and the show literally campaigned on diversity.

In which case, it was never about representation- it was always about a check.

She still thinks it is a mistake.

It ends Michael Arden’s record of being the one director who felt like a safe space to People of Color – and this may not even be his choice. However by pulling a quote from him and the composing team and putting it in the press release, it is giving them no choice but to go stand behind it. The check has to clear.

TFP does not think this is a choice by Casting Director Bernie Telsey or his team, they have long been a champion of diversity on Broadway and beyond. In some respects Broadway only started to change when Bernie Telsey came on the scene, and TFP does not say that lightly.

The casting of RENT changed things. It changed things for her personally and for her friends, she saw it – so no, she does not hold casting responsible. They were instructed to bring the actor in for a music run through and then send over a contract.

This is quite clearly a Producer choice.

However TFP will add- if the hook was AANHPI Casting, but the intention was not to keep it once the awards were awarded- DO NOT SET THE SHOW IN SOUTH KOREA, A REAL and ACTUAL PLACE!

If a non AANHPI Cast was going to come up- then do not have them travel from Seoul to Jejun Island, make up somewhere and have them travel from A to B. Do not name anything for Korean culture- because it MAKES NO SENSE!

Key producers for Maybe Happy Ending include Jeffrey Richards, Hunter Arnold, and Darren Criss. Other producers include Rebecca Gold, Spencer Ross, Adam Zotovich, Kayla Greenspan, M/B/P Productions, Fahs Productions, Ken Greiner, Ruth Hendel, Willette and Manny Klausner, Cody Lassen, Mix and Match Productions, The Nederlander Organization, and Jacob Stuckelman & John Albert Harris. 

Lotta names there, we’ll have to remember them….particularly Hunter Arnold…

TFP ventures a guess that for the next few months, the audience for this show will look different. It robs the soul from the production set in Seoul, and that is a shame.

None of the cast has anything to do with it, so please do not harass anyone. We only ‘vote’ on Broadway by purchasing a ticket, so that is all you can do – vote with your ticket choices.

TICKET CHOICES ONLY – do NOT enact hideous internet trolling on any of the Actors and the Creative Team of this show please – there HAS to be a standard here, there HAS to be. Theater MUST hold itself to a higher standard than The House and Congress and certainly, The White House.

You can be sad about it – TFP is sad about it – but making the lives of people who live to entertain you miserable, is NOT IT – get it?

IF you DO want to see a show, starring an AANHPI – you can join TFP this Sunday at The Cutting Room and see ALEC MAPA as he rolls out his next comedy special at 7PM

44 East 32nd Street, NYC, NY 10016 (2120 691-1900

All right then, another day, another time to be AANHPI and be…wistful.

Rather a slap coming right off a very exciting Awards season, but hey – hopefully they will feel the difference and make amends.

People can only learn at the rate they learn, and that is it.

TFP out.

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Categories Diversity

2025/26 will NOT be 2024/25 but it will BE…moving on…

July 16, 2025 //

The Fairy Princess has been looking at announced shows for the upcoming Fall, Winter, and Spring season, and in terms of AANHPI representation…things are looking a bit

Which is only to be expected, as it is very hard to top this year, with TONY Awards going to AANHPIs in record numbers. “Our” Award winners in the performance categories literally doubled from 3 to 6.

We had lead players in Broadway plays and musicals of AANHPI descent at a ratio that was shocking, and it is natural that those numbers we ‘readjust’ for this coming season. This is where folks think, ‘Ok, we fixed it’ in terms of diversity in casting.

Last time they ‘fixed it’ like this was, frankly, in 2016 when Hamilton won.

Yes, Hamilton won and just like that casting was ‘solved’.

In point of fact, Broadway did not have a lot of representation going on for the following two years because…everyone felt the issues were fixed.

Were they?

Well let’s see who won in 2017 – Ben Platt, Kevin Kline, Bette Midler, Laurie Metcalf, Gavin Creel, Rachel Bay Jones, Cynthia Nixon to name a few.

In 2018 there was The Band’s Visit, which diversified things a bit, lovely to see – so the names changed somewhat and the TONY winners were Tony Shaloub, Andrew Garfield, Katrina Lenk, Glenda Jackson, Nathan Lane, Ari’el Stachel, Lindsay Mendez and Laurie Metcalf

So…yes, you will see the occasional person as part of a cast, your friends who are in shows are not suddenly being released, you can still see them, TFP is talking new shows on the horizon…

There is not, at the moment, a slated AANHPI cast coming to Broadway in the 2025/26 season that has been announced. (yet)

There is a role in Queen of Versailles that has representation, but we shall have to wait till it opens.

TFP wants to warn folks who will again, be optimistic as to what this means going forward – that ‘inclusion in casting’ is never ‘solved’. Sometimes Broadway looks like it is an ‘all-play’ and sometimes it looks like a PWI.

Life is a pendulum, sometimes it swings towards and sometimes it swings away. Looking objectively at the casts that have been announced for Broadway, TFP is thinking you will find more of ‘your/our’ stories Off Broadway.

Do not forget to support theater companies like Pan Asian Rep, Ma-Yi, and others because right now, with the NEA Grants either being postponed or pemanently frozen, ‘we’ are going to have to support the theater we want to see.

You have to enjoy what you have when you have it, and hope to push the bar forward so that options are always available.

Like noodles.

However, as the Gray Lady, The New York Times has announced enormous change in their theater critics assignments, perhaps some shows with a more novel point of view will be embraced going forward, which will enable change to be consistent.

Meanwhile let’s check in with ‘our’ TONY winners, what is going on, and how long is everyone staying….

Past TONY Winner, Lea Salonga, has closed OLD FRIENDS on Broadway and is in the Philippines doing the Sondheim classic, INTO THE WOODS. She is also set to receive her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – we do not have a date yet, but that is very exciting.

Marco Paguia is still at Buena Vista Social Club leading the orchestra. He won for Best Orchestrations. The show is selling out, and he is staying at the helm musically.

Nicole Scherzinger will be closing Sunset Blvd, the show she won Best Actress in a Musical for on July 20, 2025. It was always a limited run, we just do not have another Hawaiian, Ukranian, Filipina superstar to fill in with a show, and well, that’s life.

Darren Criss, who won Best Actor in a Musical for Maybe Happy Ending, for his role of Oliver – will be leaving his show on August 31, 2025.

Maybe Happy Ending won Best Direction of a Musical for Michael Arden, Best Book of a Musical for Hue Park & Will Aronson, Best Original Score of a Musical for Park & Aronson, Best Scenic Design for Dana Laffey & George Reeve, and it will stay open on Broadway.

The cast is largely AANHPI. However no clue as to how long the Original Broadway Company (Helen J. Shen, Marcus Choi, Dez Duron, Daniel May, Steve Huynh, Hannah Kevitt, Claire Kwon, Christopher James Tamayo) will stay, although we wish them SRO crowds in perpetuity.

Ms. Shen has been announced as part of the cast of the feature film, The Devil Wears Prada 2, also announced as part of that cast is TONY Nominee for 2025 in Oh! Mary, Conrad Ricamora.

Traci Thoms is returning as well, and if “Lily’ doesn’t walk in swinging that now vintage Marc Jacobs blue tote…well, heads will roll.

Congrats to them.

Francis Jue, who won for Best Supporting Actor in a Play for his role in Yellow Face written by David Henry Hwang, a show that is already closed, will next appear in TARTUFFE, as Cleante, which is a new version by playwright Lucas Hnath.

It will be at NYTW and that is Off-Broadway, his co-stars include Matthew Broderick, David Cross, Emily Davis, Bianca del Rio, Amber Gray, Ryan Haddad, Lisa Kron and Ufomadu. It will be directed by Obie winner, Sara Benson.

In fact, reflecting on Mr. Jue, who has now that gleaming TONY Award, that even in this moment ‘at the top’, his next announced project is placing him where he ‘lives’ – doing interesting work Off Broadway.

He has had a 35 year career as an actor. Mr. Jue is a ‘playwright’s actor’ – meaning an actor playwrights like to work with, one that brings to life new works in a way that defines them ever afterward. He has worked for playwrights like David Henry Hwang, Lauren Yee, Hansol Jung, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Kevin So, William Shakespeare, and on and on.

He has ‘changed the stage’ for anyone who seen his work. He is Francis Jue, he was always working. He has a list of awards and nominations as long as your arm – in fact, there is no more honored modern day Actor of Asian heritage than Francis Jue.

The reason that the audience cheered so loudly at the Tonys were because Francis Jue embodies what it is to be an actor. He is a journeyman – ever moving forward, wandering new vistas, exploring new roles. He has done dramas, comedy, television, film, Broadway plays AND Broadway musicals.

He came to the profession in college, and has moved organically through the world – not relying on connections or who his parents were to build his career. He built his career on his body of work. He is a true gentleman of the theater, combining performing with service to Actors Equity Association on occasion – he lives, eats, and breathes theater, and it was lovely that theater recognized it.

That is why everyone cheered.

Now they need to give him another TONY Award worthy role on Broadway. It would be amazing if Cambodian Rock Band came to Broadway…just sayin….cough cough

Congratulations Mr. Jue!

TFP knows that Alvin Ing is cheering for you along with the rest of us.

(Knowing Alvin, he was probably annoyed it took this long, which is why TFP picked this cat meme.)

You can STILL seen AANHPI representation on the stages in New York!

TFP will list a few below:

This is not meant to be depressing, Folks – if you live in NYC, or even if you do not, you can see TWELFTH NIGHT with Sandra Oh – PBS is going to be making the production available to everyone on November 14th at 9 p.m.

If you live in New York, you can go to the newly renovated Delcourte Theater in Central Park from August 7 to September 14, 2025 and line up to see if you can get the free tickets to that evening’s performance.

The cast is as follows: Peter Dinklage, Jesse Tyler-Fergusan, Lupita Nyong’o, Sandra Oh, Daphne Rubin Vega, Junior Nyong’o, Khris Davis, John Ellison Conlee, Ariyan Kassam, Valentino Musumeci, Moses Sumney, Kapil Talkwalker, Joe Tapper, Dario Alvarez, Jaina Rose Jallow, Precious Omigie, Chinna Palmer, Nathan M. Ramsey, Jasmine Sharma, Julian Tushabe, Adrian Villegas, Ada Westfall, and Mia Wurgaft.

You can go to the immersive re-imagined Phantom of the Opera, called MASQUERADE at 218 W.57th Street and see Anna Zavelson, Telly Leung, Raymond J. Lee, Riley Noland, Francesca Mehrotra, and Satomi Hoffman. This cast includes former Phantoms and Christines from the Broadway production run, and is all enclosed in a 5 story renovated building – redone to resemble the Paris Opera House.

Cocktail dress and masquerade mask are required, while there will be complimentary mask available as well as available to purchase. It is a 21 and over ‘event’, but guests 16 and up will be allowed to attend during special performances during previews. They ask that high heels not be worn, as part of the experience is the Paris Catacombs under the Opera house.

You will be planted right into the plot of the show and Diane Paulus (Waitress, 1776, Porgy and Bess, Pippin, Jagged Little Pill) is directing. Ms. Paulus is of Japanese and American descent. She directed it! The whole thing!

Quite a lot of representation of all kinds in that cast – so, likely it is time for theater to give it up to the female directors, who have been KILLING it for the past twenty years with very little recognition.

TFP is talking Leigh Siverman, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, Whitney White, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Tina Landau, Rachel Chavkin, Lucy Moss, Sammi Cannold, May Andrales, Marianne Elliot and many more

You can see Keanu Reeves – on Broadway! In Waiting for Godot!

Opening September 28th at The Hudson Theater.

Previews begin Sept 13 and they have a hard out on January 4, 2026.

Currently he is ‘our’ only lead on the Bway, so …go and see him if you can afford the tickets.

TFP just checked and they go from about $480-$900.

All the representation- none of the discounts.

Welp, we shall see if AANHPIs buy those tix…but TFP is not optimistic.

You could ALSO go see Alec Mapa – who actually was in the Original Broadway Company with Francis Jue of M. Butterfly – perform his upcoming comedy special on Sunday July 27th at 7 pm. The show will be at The Cutting Room, 44 E32nd Street, NYC NY 10016 and tickets are available here.

You can also go see JOY! The musical Off Broadway and check out Jaygee Macapugay, last seen in the cast of SUFFS on Broadway – which will be running until August 17, 2025.

She plays Joy’s Father’s new Girlfriend, Lorraine – as Joy invents the Miracle Mop.

Finally, If you have some extra cash but no time to attend right now, you could also throw some money towards actor David Lee Huynh, who is workshopping a play – https://givebutter.com/2eWUM3

Ok that is it, and TFP is outta here, enjoy your summer and your last days of Democracy while we watch all our rights be taken away by a House and Congress and SCOTUS who delight in cruelty and enabling a sociopath.

Cheers!

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Categories Diversity

The MOST AANHPI Season of Bway coming to a close, and let’s talk about that interview….

May 27, 2025 //

The Fairy Princess wants to acknowledge that when she called the 2024-2025 season ‘the most’ AANHPI season on Broadway without a show being set in an Asian country…she was RIGHT! Let the gloating begin!

While she cannot take credit for ANY of it, and one shouldn’t, she admits to being overwhelmed when the nominations were announced. She did not even write about it. It was personally moving, and it was hard to put words to the feeling of, “I may be done here’, as representation on Broadway was all that TFP ever wanted.

She wanted it for herself, but overwhemingly, she wanted to for her son. She did not want her child to grow up and only see his three stages of life represented in The King and I, and think that was all he could do in life, should he choose performing. So she started writing, and now, as he turns 13 in a week, all she can think is that what she chose to do to change the conversation, it was worth it.

He will never have to worry, should he choose performance (although she is Asian enough to hope he does not, and everyone needs a lawyer or a dermatologist) he will have a wide range of things to choose from, and he has inspirations, and people moving mountains he will never know that existed.

Names of people she has known forever, who have doggedly pursued their dreams when most would have told them, “it will never happen’.

Those people were wrong.

To that, TFP says HA!

We must acknowledge that Daniel Dae Kim is the first in the Lead Male Category of Play to be nominated. THE. FIRST. EVER. MAN. OF. ASIAN. DESCENT. to be nominated as the LEAD in a Play. DDK has been, has HAD to be, an actor, a producer, and an advocate for representation – and that, is actually what this blog is about, but give the man his flowers…he deserves them.

It took 78 years of TONY Award ceremonies for this moment.

Allow TFP to list the AANHPI Nominees, for a moment please…

Best Musical: Maybe Happy Ending (Starring Helen J. Shen, Darren Criss)

Best Musical: Operation Mincemeat (starring Claire-Marie Hall)

Best Musical Revival: Sunset Blvd (starring Nicole Scherzinger)

Best Play Revival: Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang

Best Lead Actor in a Play: Daniel Dae Kim

Best Lead Actress in a Musical: Nicole Sherzinger

Best Lead Actor in a Musical: Darren Criss

Best Direction of a Musical: Saheem Ali

Best Featured Actor in a Play: Francis Jue, Yellow Face

Best Featured Actor in a Play: Conrad Ricamora, Oh, Mary!

Best Book of a Musical: Hue Park (& Will Aronson) Maybe Happy Ending

Best Scenic Design of a Musical: (Dane Laffrey) Maybe Happy Ending

Best Lighting Design of a Play: David Bengali (& Heather Gilbert) – Good Night and Good Luck

Best Costume Design of a Play: Brenda Abbandandolo – Good Night & Good Luck

Best Orchestrations: Marco Paguia – Buena Vista Social Club

Best Original Score: Hue Park (& Will Aronson) – Maybe Happy Ending

Best Costume Design of a Musical: Clint Ramos – Maybe Happy Ending

Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Ruey Horng Sun (& Scott Zielinski) – Floyd Collins

In addition, you are perfectly able to go and see Lea Salonga on Broadway now in OLD FRIENDS, which is a Sondheim revue, although it seems an injustice to call it that – TFP saw it in London, it is remarkable.

(If the work stars AANHPI performers, TFP has included it on that list. If the designer is working in conjunction with another person, she has put brackets around the partner who is not Asian. If the person nominated is of Asian descent, but the play/musical is not – TFP has included it on the list. If the nominee is mixed Asian descent, in all parts of that diaspora, she has included it on this list.)

Truly, it is the list of her dreams. Did it irk her that the men have 6 nominations in the leads of musicals and the women have 5? Yes. Is there room for ONE more for the women….absolutely there is.

Ahem.

That list would not be possible, even ten years ago because AANHPIs did not have access like they have now. TFP repeats, that list would not have been possible 10 years ago because we did not have interest from either the public or the producers ten years ago in ‘our’ stories. TFP has been writing this blog for 14 years, and when she started, a list like the above was unthinkable.

It just would not have happened – and you cannot impose the open-ness of now onto the closed-ness of then. That is a very weird thing to her, to constantly go back and act like people have not changed, Broadway has not changed, and audiences have not changed in 14 years. She understands that ‘the kids’ who are very vocal about speaking up and out NOW, insist it all would have been different sooner if ‘we’ (the ones who were around back then, and before) had railed against the dying of the light at the time – and we did, but that list is GENERATIONAL CHANGE.

People have to be ready for change – and as we can tell from this last election – where they could have propelled us forward by voting for the Bi-racial Lawyer who was a prosecutor and always the best questioner on ANY inquiry panel she was on, and who was selected to be ONE heartbeat away from the Presidency – who would have taken seriously revisions on health care, vaccinations, tax relief, housing, who had plans all day long – and they voted for the Sundowning Tarriff Bogeyman and his makeup loving “I can’t be racist because I am married to a woman of color’ clown car of a disaster side piece.

Because white America was not ready to admit the white guy was unqualified, and she was qualified.

Yes, they are ignorant and racist. Yes, they are. However they were not ready to admit that, and so here we are, America.

So when TFP tells you, a list like that has taken deliberate and repeated attacks on the ‘establishment’ of white theater over and over and over, just by EXISTING – you should believe her. It has been a GROUP project by people like Ralph B. Peña, Tisa Chang, Baayork Lee, Mia Katigbak, DHH, Jon Lawrence Rivera, Roger Tang, AAPAC, East West Players, Lodestone, SLANT, NAAP, Pan Asian, NAATCO, Ma-Yi, Silk Road Rising, CAATA, MAM, Artists at Play, Grateful Crane Ensemble, Kumu Kahua Theatre, Pangea World Theater, TeAda, Theater Mu, A Squared and whoever else has contributed to this – she means it.

It took EVERYONE to change that narrative that AANHPIs could not act, or sing, or dance unless they were doing Flower Drum Song or King & I or Miss Saigon or Bollywood Dreams.

It is OPPORTUNITY and ACCESS meeting ‘the moment’.

WHICH IS WHY when TFP read the article in the New Yorker, she had some thoughts on one very specific section (well, she had thoughts on the whole thing, but most of that was that someone needed a nap or a cocktail…)

Now, placing a two-hander play next to a musical was not a great producing decision, but perhaps the theater was the only one available. However, she should not have taken it upon herself to contact the Producers of Hell’s Kitchen directly. That is and will always be, a producer discussion. That is a conversation that actors can and should never be involved in, because it falls outside the parameters of what is your responsibility as an actor.

The theaters are close together and they are old, however there is much that can be done, and again – THAT IS A PRODUCER DISCUSSION, STAY IN YOUR LANE.

So the ‘clap-back’ by Ms. Lewis was warranted. That is why Audra McDonald liked it – because ‘get off my lawn’ is not the right energy for Broadway.

If you act up and act out then you take your licks – you open that door, be prepared for someone to close it for you.

It was this next part that TFP really did not like:

Comparing your 28 Broadway shows, as a person who attended Julliard, and who has, as a white actress (yes, yes, even when she started, she would have been seen as a white actress, though in the 1800’s that was not the case because her family hails from Sicily) been offered things on a scale that is almost unheard of ALL her life….that is not the look, M’am.

She is confusing access with talent level.

Which, TFP wants to remind you, that Kecia Lewis has TEN Broadway shows as an African American woman living her life in the Predominantly White Industry that is Broadway. There are very few people that can claim 10 Broadway shows to their credit, so it is not a flex to compare 28 to 10.

Ms. Lewis did not have the ACCESS that Patti LuPone had, ever. She never, ever had it. She DESERVED it – but it was not available to her because, and TFP is going to say this AGAIN for the folks in the back – BROADWAY IS A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE INDUSTRY!

In fact, they BOTH won Best Featured Actress in a Musical – Ms. LuPone in 2022, and Ms. Lewis in 2024. Two years apart. To be so dismissive of a colleague that is, by definition of that award alone, in the same category as you?

Ms. Lewis started performing on Broadway AT AGE 18!

18!

Ms. LuPone did not perform on Broadway at 18, she was in Julliard at 18.

Journeys are always different – some are harder than others.

Ms. LuPone had career ups and downs – however with as many fights as she has gotten in with cast members and producers – would she have been allowed to continue those ups and downs post the Andrew Lloyd Webber Sunset Blvd debacle if she was a Black woman?

Patti LuPone trashed a dressing room. She sued Andrew Lloyd Webber. Over a role. She has called former cast mates names in the press. She left the Union because she didn’t feel like paying and then abruptly came back with a new show. She moans about the folks who come and see Broadway shows and the space they take up.

TFP has no doubt she can be a wonderful colleague and super fun to get drinks with, but if she had that rep, as a woman of color – would she have been allowed to continue at the level she has?

It is just a question.

A question from a Mixed Asian Woman who watched all her classmates bounce to Broadway before she did because she did not fit a body type or a look that most thought of as Asian – so there were very few shows she could ‘fit’ into – even though she could see herself in all of them. Then she started writing and pointing out disparities and Broadway CDs said “no thanks’ for THREE years.

Just as an example.

Just food for thought.

Because TFP has seen what this industry does to POC who speak up.

TFP could say more. She could.

This is simply a woman who cannot see her privilege who continues to lash out, not realizing the damage she is doing to herself and her reputation. These are two colleagues she is lashing out at, in a ridiculous and unfair way. She doesn’t want to do Broadway again? TFP does not think that will be an issue, though she has enjoyed her performances for years.

As they say in COMPANY ‘I think there’s a time to come to New York and a time to leave”

Let’s discuss someone who is sticking around…Ms. Kecia Lewis!

However, as it turns out, TFP saw the luminescent Ms. Lewis SEVERAL times in her life on the stage INCLUDING just this past Saturday night on Broadway. She and her son were in the front row (they punk’d her at TKTS, y’all cuz the guy just said “i have two in the orchestra’ and didn’t say where) and Ms. Lewis was a revelation and a dream, she sang that stage up and down, and put us all in our places as we watched her perform in HELL’s KITCHEN.

The entire cast was FIRE, and you would think if sound was SUCH an issue, TFP would be deaf, being in the front row.

She is not deaf. The sound was particularly well managed from the front of house perspective.

She also got to see her son be totally captivated by Ms. Lewis and the cast’s performances, which, honestly is a win for a parent. He loved it. Particularly because he plays piano, and Ms. Lewis’s character teaches piano in the show.

Ms. Lewis and her ten Broadway shows and her TONY award in 2024 is a testament to her staying in the industry as it changed, and being the change she wanted to see. The two journeys are not comparable. That is all TFP wanted to say.

TFP is going to end by reminding people that access is not talent – and they should never be confused.

Some of the greatest performers the world does not know, have never been on Broadway because of access – very often there is little they can do to change it.

That is the way the world works, but to paraphrase Lorrell Robinson in Dreamgirls…from one Long Island gal to another….

“You got the same job I got?“

“You got the same TONY I got?“

“Then shut up“

TFP out

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Categories Diversity

Dim the damn lights, Broadway League

October 4, 2024 //

The Fairy Princess and The Broadway League are friends, in the way that the Cowboys and the Farmers are friends in the musical, OKLAHOMA.

Many of the issues that have come down through the years was because they hired someone whose background was in hospitality to run a creative venture – a body that speaks for the Producers – a Lorax of the money folks.

Charlotte St. Martin ran it for the past 18 years – notoriously fumbling her way through 18 years of horrible quotes and disdain that sent theater professionals reeling – devaluing understudies, covering for Scott Rudin, raising ticket prices to levels that are, frankly, unsustainable, and in general, making a this farmers v. cowmen situation come to reality in a way it had not been before. (TFP can think of several truly stellar Broadway producers, who do amazing work so this is not a crack on the producers individually, just the organization)

What is The Broadway League? It promotes Broadway, handles union negotiations with the many unions required to work on Broadway, whether out in front or in the house, or trucking in the sets – they collect data about Broadway’s economic health, the demographics of the audience, and produces The Tony Awards every year.

This year, Ms. St. Martin retired from the position on Feb. 16th, it is currently being run by Jason Laks, the League’s Exec VP and general counsel.

The Theater Community -and by that, TFP means the people who make theater – the Creatives and Craftspeople, the House Staff, the Crews – have been set reeling over several deaths that have taken a huge toll. The Broadway League has used the tradition of ‘dimming of the lights’ to show people respect, because those that do theater specialize and cherish ‘the moment’, and moments are with us fleetingly, but they were there and changed us nonetheless.

TFP is going to say their names here – James Earl Jones, Dame Maggie Smith, Gavin Creel, Hinton Battle, Adrian Bailey, Ken Page...

It is a list full of wonderful talent who gave so much – but TFP wonders why there is ‘partial dimming’ and a ‘full’ dimming. All the talent listed should have the lights dimmed in full.

Why do we even have partial dimming?

If TFP looks down a theater row street, and a few lights are out – she thinks, “Hey, maybe a switch broke’, not “Here is someone being honored’, unless she stops and takes it in and sees their head shot on the marquee. Partial dimming is for partial contribution – and all those honored with any dimming at all, have given of their full selves aka, total comittment.

Adrian Bailey‘s dimming was HISTORIC – and they dimmed one theater from each theater owner – which was, 9 theaters. This Gentleman of the theater performed in 15 Broadway productions and 2 National Tours. He was the first ensemble member ever so honored. The lights dimmed, and we love it – but if someone has literally given their entire life to the theater – why did not all the lights dim? They should have.

Broadway theaters are finite – there are 41.

Do you know what dimming entails?

Do you?

They turn the marquee off in front of the theater for one minute.

ONE MINUTE.

Legitimately the Stage Manager or the House Manager or whoever is ‘on the clock’ and already present, turns off the light, times it with a watch or an iphone for one minute, and then turns the lights back on, while people gather to say their collective goodbyes and thank you. They could be fans, they could be friends, they could be family – they just want to gather with others who are equally sad, and take a collective breath and say, “We remember you. We thank you for your service to the theater. You were beloved. We will miss you.”

For one, lousy minute.

And for that, the Broadway League – who made money off of these individuals – decides that collectively theater cannot mourn, because it might cost them money.

One minute does not cost money. Technically wouldn’t it save money, if only for a moment?

If an individual has exhibited such technique and prowess in their craft, that their passing deserves recognition – we should not parsimoniously eek out the number of theaters allowed to dim – we should dim them in recognition of their great contribution. What is even going on with the weighing of ‘worth’ to the theater community?

They were all worthy!

Let the lights dim, let the clocks stop.

If just for a moment.

Gavin Creel, who was 48 when he left us ‘half way through the woods’, who was a TONY Award winner, and activist, deserves more than ‘partial’ – that is the way TFP feels.

He suffered from a rare and aggressive cancer that took him in a short amount of time, and no one was prepared.

He was as ‘alive’ a performer as there was – and TFP saw him in all of his Broadway performances except HELLO DOLLY, (she just could not justify the Rudin ticket price), and the way he made people feel – not just who knew him personally, but who only knew him through his concerts for charity, or from his solo shows, or from the 8 Broadway shows he was in, or those he did in the West End, was remarkable.

His contribution to the theater community was remarkable, and in many ways – individuals like Gavin Creel are what make the Broadway Community feel LIKE a Community.

TFP is tired of these ongoing petitions to have to be made, like the one below, which she has signed, and asks you to do so as well, where the family and friends of actors who did the 8 show a week grind, have to fight for their loved one to be honored.

It’s not right.

Adam Feldman started this petition, TFP is just sharing it.

TFP had to write for Joan Rivers, and for Marin Mazzie, and so many more – and it is honestly upsetting to have to, again, write in support of recognition for someone’s career that impacted Broadway…but here we are again.

Please sign the petition, and Broadway League?

Do the right thing.

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Categories Diversity

Warrior Sisters of Wu opens at Pan Asian Rep, 1st Asian Orpheus in Hadestown, 1st AsAm Velma Kelly in Chicago

February 12, 2024 //

The Fairy Princess wishes you a Happy New Year – whether you call it Lunar, Chinese, Tet, or Seollal (Japan does not celebrate Lunar New Year since 1873) – have some noodles, dance with a lion, and let’s just be glad that pesky bunny is gone in favor of the Wood Dragon. TFP had an pretty awful 2023, so 2024 does not need to do any heavy lifting, per se – just not be as awful as 2023. The bar, as they say, is low.

Speaking of which, she is doing a concert at 54 Below on March 16 at 9:30pm- day before St. Patrick’s Day called Mom’s Night Out, where your favorite musical theater Mama’s dazzle audiences with their songs and stories about the journey that is motherhood. Megan Minutillo is the producing mama puttin’ it all together, so a thanks for the invite, and TFP will see you in March. (Use the code MOM5 for $ off your dining and bar tab) Tix here.

Now, there have been some kind of amazing things happening for AAPI’s in Musical Theater around the globe, as well as in Mid town Manhattan, and TFP wanted to discuss.

First off – Congratulations to Shannon Tyo, who won at the 67th OBIE Awards for Sustained Performance in Achievement for her role as Mora in Lloyd Suh‘s THE FAR COUNTRY at The Atlantic Theater Company.

Congrats on their OBIE to Hansol Jung for The Wolf Play, who won for playwriting here is their acceptance speech.

The King & I is playing in London for a limited time, and starring Darren Lee as The King!

He plays opposite Call The Midwife‘s star, Helen George – and frankly, TFP is down for it – reports from friends are great and reviews are better. Only for 6 weeks – if you are popping across the pond, here is your ticket link.

Let’s start with the most recent of events in New York City – last evening at HADESTOWN on Broadway, TIMOTHY H. LEE went on for Orpheus for the first time – meaning he is the FIRST Orpheus of Asian heritage to play the role.

TFP is including the Artist’s Instagram posts- these moments, though huge globally, remains personal.

Is this huge? Yes. Does TFP get tired of counting firsts? Also yes. When we stop needing to count in order to justify our existence on stage and screen TFP will be fully satisfied.

TFP extends hearty congratulations to Mr. Lee – who immigrated from Korea, and considers English to be his second language. This is an enormous accomplishment by any standard, and it is fitting, that Hadestown, which has always been an inclusive and diverse cast under the direction of Rachel Chavkin, crossed this barrier willingly.

Likewise attention must be turned to CHICAGO on Broadway where Kristen Faith Oei became the first Asian American to play Velma Kelly. She also goes on for Miss Katlin Hunyak in addition to covering the role of Velma. Currently CHICAGO has Lili Thomas playing Matron Mama Morton, and Fil-Am Red Concepciòn as Mr. Amos Hart aka Mr. Cellophane. They also had Japanese star Ryoko Yonekura as Roxie Hart in 2012. CHICAGO is combining ‘old’ Broadway with some much needed upgrades. Bravo!

Also, many salutations to Courtney Reed, who is currently starring as Satine in Moulin Rogue. You likely know her from her long running role as Princess Jasmine in ALADDIN on Broadway, and as one of the stars of Lauren Yee‘s CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, but she has been holding down Satine first on tour in 2022, and now on Broadway since August of 2023. Go see her, she is delightful – and hey – Boy George is there too.

Some celebrate Lunar New Year by eating and hanging with family, while others take their families to see theater at Pan Asian Rep in New York City. (The others is TFP) Now in it’s almost unheard of 47th Season under the Artistic Direction of NY legend, Tisa Chang – they premiered their latest play – Warrior Sisters of Wu yesterday, Superbowl Sunday.

Adapted from “Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ one of the most famous Chinese classic tales, it has very few English language adaptations, which is of course, why Playwright Damon Chua chose it as his next project. (Why pick easy?) He paired that with a framework in his head of the English classic, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

The result is a Family friendly Rom Com from 200 A.D., with swords. TFP‘s son really enjoyed this – and as a parent, it is beyond a relief to be able to take him to the theater, have a genuine story be told, and to hear his responses, again, TFP wants to stress, her son really enjoyed this.

We follow the Qiao sisters, best known nowadays in their modern avatars as characters in the Dynasty Warriors video game series, as they fall in love and kick ass against the backdrop of impending war. Ably directed by LA staple, Jeff Liu paired with deft fight choreography by Michael G. Chin – it is one to see.

One only hopes that the impending snow storm takes it easy on New York so they get the crowd they deserve.

Pictured in the photo, Director Jeff Liu, Liam Kong, and Damon Chua.

It is hard, as a New York based actor, to truly have words about what the steadiness of Pan Asian Rep has done for the New York AAPI Actor. Much as East West Players in Los Angeles has been sometimes the lone flag waving in the distance to give us hope – Pan Asian has – for 47 seasons – been there. Telling AAPI stories, encouraging them, commissioning them, holding workshops, and helping shape the ways ‘we’ get to be seen. Over the years they have offered classes, mentorship, and hope – Tisa was on Broadway in a show, and used her own money to start Pan Asian – and 47 seasons later, she is still there.

(If this were a Marvel show, we’d be calling her The Hand of AAPI Theater. It is a compliment.)

Warrior Sisters of Wu is a specifically Chinese story, told entirely in English, with modern sensibilities. Many of the questions TFP‘s 11 year old whispered in her ear, were answered seconds later in the dialogue and actions – he was seeing part of his own story told on a stage in front of him for 100 minutes.

When TFP was a child, the best her parents were able to show her in terms of a Chinese story starring Asian people, was taking her to see a troupe of martial artists and acrobats from China.

Did she still love it? Of course. However we cannot underestimate the value of younger minds at the theater, seeing versions of themselves that are ‘allowed’ to play different characters who have just as much dignity and gravitas as is often only allowed with white stories.

All stories can be told specifically and deliberately- it is that which makes the understanding of it universal.

TFP really hopes that the story told, that of two woman warriors who battle gender norms, gets butts in the seats, and gets the Lortels to sit up and notice.

The show is playing at the A.R.T./NY Mezzanine Theater – 502 W. 53RD STREET – go see it – running until MARCH 10th.

Tix link here

Ok, ok, ok – go Lion Dance and watch some fireworks – Happy Year of the Wood Dragon!

Hope you get rich!

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Categories Diversity

Calling it – 2024 will be the most “Asian” season on Broadway without a show set in an Asian country! BRING THE ACTION!

January 17, 2024 //

The Fairy Princess got the news yesterday that The Great Gatsby is going to Broadway from Papermill Playhouse, and they are taking the lead players – Eva Noblezada (Miss Saigon, Hadestown) and Jeremy Jordan, with them.

This means that Broadway, for the first time ever in a season – without musicals set in Asia – will have an unprecedented, NINE possibly TEN new Asian heritaged PRINCIPAL roles in shows that are not revolving around the performer’s background. Shows opening in the 2024 season, we love the shows that have been holding up the sky for a while now, so TFP will list a few, but she is talking this year, 2024, Year of the Dragon.

We currently have Michael Maliakel and Sonya Balsara holding it down in Aladdin, for the ‘long running shows’ as well as Ruthie Ann Miles in Sweeney Todd. Lola Tung coming in to Hadestown as Eurydice on Feb 9 opposite Lilias White as Hermes and Jordan Fisher as Orpheus for a limited run. Chicago recently added Lili Thomas as Mama Morton and Red Concepción as Amos – so even long running shows can be inclusive. And….revivals – with Vishal Vaidya holding it down in Merrily We Roll Along.

In Hamilton, Stephanie Jae Park is Eliza, Marc Delacruz is the standby for several of the lead male roles, which he most recently was lauded in various publications for switching roles mid show. Jen Sese is there as standby for all the Schuyler sisters, and Eddy Lee and Preston Mui, round out the Ensemble.

Yes, you can go to a Broadway show and see people that you can find parts of yourself in – not carbon copies, but parts of yourself.

Add to that the wins for BEEF – EMMYS for the leading players Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, the Golden Globe nomination for Greta Lee for her performance in the feature Past Lives, this year is shaping up to be the BEST EVER!! Shout out to Sandra Oh and Akwafina for the win for Quiz Lady from the Critic’s Choice Award for Best Movie Made for TV? The inclusion of the film, The Queen of my Dreams at the Toronto International Film Festival, starring Ayana Manji as the young version of Azra, one of the main characters?

What is happening world?

TFP is thinking that both Casting and Agents need to wrap their heads around who to call in, and who is on the roster, and if you do not have AAPIs on your rosters – CAA, WMA, AAA, and others – best get to stepping. We are stepping in it.

Let’s begin with the announcements as they have come down the pike:

Eva Noblezada – The Great Gatsby as socialite Daisy Buchanan. With two Tony nominations under her belt for past performances in Hadestown and Miss Saigon, Eva has wasted no time in getting back on the boards, and this is a great thing.

(Shout out here to the musical film CHICAGO, which featured Lucy Liu also as a socialite in this era)

Ruthie Ann Miles – Currently in Sweeney Todd as the Beggar Woman, waiting for a theater to be confirmed – once it is, she will star alongside the remarkable Anna Zavelson as her daughter. TFP is including them in the tally, as there is more than a good chance the theater is on the verge of being announced.

Daniel Dae Kim – as DHH in Yellowface at The Roundabout – a play that deals with racial ambiguity and the need to attach to an idea, simply because one is seeking ‘representation’ so strongly. The rest of the cast has not been announced yet, however, TFP has seen this show done before, and usually the rest of the cast is within the AAPI spectrum with some exceptions.

Ramin Karimloo – this Persian ( aka Iranian aka Western Asian) Canadian has long been a Broadway and West End staple performer, (CHESS, Funny Girl, Anastasia, Les Miserables, This next one TFP is super excited for, as it is her FAVORITE Gilbert & Sullivan piece –The Pirates of Penzance, also at The Roundabout. David Hyde-Pierce is announced as Pirate King, so TFP is guessing Mr. Karimloo is the wandering Virgin apprenticed to a Pirate, Frederick.

(Update- Mr. K is the Pirate King and DHP is the Modern Major General- although the above is what the press announcement was.)

Jaygee Macapuguay – will play the role of Mollie Hay in the new musical by Shaina Taub, SUFFS, which also has in it Nadia Dandashi as Doris Stevens, Kim Blanck is playing Ruza Wenclawska and Christine Heesun Hwang in the ensemble.

Special note must be made because there are three principals of Asian heritage in a new show, and it would be unfair to highlight one over the other – but let TFP say, there are theater actors that time and time again have shown audiences what they are made of, and to see them make the leap to Principal contract is super special. She has known and admired them for years, so…

TFP is going to say a hearty congratulations to THE HEART OF ROCK AND ROLL, which just announced it’s opening and is kind of taking the mantle from Sweeney Todd & Hamilton has worn proudly of ‘most Asians in a show not about being Asian’, and here they are:

This last potential show – not confirmed yet, but COME FALL IN LOVE, the DDJ musical, which is directed by Aditya Chopra, book and lyrics by Nell Benjamin, and choreo by Rob Marshall, with Assoc Choreographer Shruti Merchant – would be a huge win for South Asian representation on Broadway, and Asians in general would be ‘slayed the house down’ if that came to pass in 2024.

IF that is true – no word on a theater yet – however TFP is still calling it –

2024 will be THE MOST ASIAN YEAR ON BROADWAY – and coincidentally – YEAR OF THE DRAGON!

So breathe some fire, set off some fireworks and clean your house, Broadway – the AAPIs are coming, and coming in HOT!

TFP out.

She excited, but she out – for now, and only for now. (If you get it, you get it)

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Categories Diversity

DDK on the Old Broadway – DHH and The Roundabout brings YELLOW FACE (the play) to the Great White Way

January 9, 2024 //

TFP already wrote today…however, this is big and it goes along with some great strides being made in theater by AAPI performers, however it is equally met in the behind the scenes representation.

Daniel Dae Kim, who was last seen on Broadway in The King & I in 2016, will lead the production of YELLOWFACE written by Broadway’s only Asian American Tony Award winning Playwright – David Henry Hwang, who has returned from opera land and tv land to brave a post Covid Broadway. This was just announced for The Roundabout’s 2024-25 season.

Directed by DHH’s longtime collaborator, Leigh Silverman, this play, which is semi-autobiographical, deals with mounting a play and assuming that an actor is Mixed Race, and therefore is cast AS Asian American. TFP finds this fascinating because she remembers (everytime she says that to herself, she says it in a Game of Thrones “The North Remembers” kind of way) DHH’s play, Face Value. Anyway, being of mixed heritage herself and being told she ‘counted or did not count as Asian” depending on who was serving judgement, she has always been exhausted yet fascinated by this play.

DDK who has been heavily involved in producing for television over the last few years, began as an Actor – he holds an MFA from NYU, and TFP still recalls how powerful a presence he was in The Tempest at East West Players in Los Angeles. He is a very commanding stage actor, and she is really glad he is going to come back and trod the boards.

Likewise The Roundabout is also mounting TFP‘s FAVORITE GILBERT AND SULLIVAN PIECE, The Pirates of Penzance, starring the Canadian born, Tony Nominee, Ramin Karimloo, who is of Western Asian Heritage, as The Pirate King. Most recently Mr. Karimloo was seen in the Broadway revival of FUNNY GIRL, but he has played The Phantom in Phantom of the Opera all over the world, likewise all the weighty male roles in Les Miserables.

This is fantastic news, because both these men are leads in their respective shows and it seems that this in some way, far too late, is The Roundabout‘s round a bout acknowledgement of using Brownface makeup on actors during their production of THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD – which, was fairly egregious.

(Do not come at TFP for this, it was a giant ass mistake and yes, she knows it is a show within a show and so on – does not mean that browning up white performers to play people from Ceylon is acceptable. It was not then, it is not now.) (Also Ceylon is now Sri Lanka)

This was TONY winner Jessie Mueller and TONY Nominee Andy Karl at the Opening Night Party, here they are in the production:

Ahem.

To the point of ‘if they knew better, they would do better’, the NYGASP Production of THE MIKADO is once again up and running. Many years ago, one may remember that TFP’s coverage on the offensiveness of the production that they ran was the subject of a blog post after TFP had gone to see the production.

This led to all kinds of things – people were angry. Although they did a very interesting thing – they invited TFP to come speak on a panel about The Mikado to their subscribers. (If you saw the reaction to Jo Koy at The Golden Globes, it was a bit like that when TFP began speaking) At the end of the panel, it was announced that NYGASP was going to take a season and think about their production and try and amend it. TFP was invited to return when they ‘fixed’ it.

Honestly, TFP was shocked – but they DID fix it. They hired Broadway’s Kelvin Moon Loh to come in and help them imagine better. Kelvin is not just an insanely talented Broadway performer, he is a writer who has sold shows for development.

They added a scene that begins before the operetta, to explain how Gilbert imagined the production – and this was based on testimony from Gilbert himself as to how he imagined it. Then, they did outreach and expanded their company to include AAPI performers. AAPI performers who were not to be hired just for THE MIKADO, those who could join the rep company and add to what was happening there.

It is now, a very enjoyable MIKADO – which is almost impossible to say in the rest of the country – and therefore TFP presents you the ticket link, so that you may see for yourselves – it only runs till Jan 14th, but you have a whole three days to arrange your weekend, so get to stepping.

Also coming this week to Off Broadway, is the Jason Robert Brown piece, The Connector.

It’s new, and as far as TFP knows, is NOT about Jill Zarin.

It does however, have in it’s cast Sweeney Todd‘s Joanna Carpenter and Ann Sanders, most recently of Music Man and Dear Evan Hansen.

Which is exciting, and TFP has her tickets to a matinee, so she will get to see them and so many more folks that she knows and loves.

Just a reminder that it was stated by Ruthie Ann Miles that the reimagining of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA directed by Chay Yew is looking for a theater. So we could wind up, New Yorkers, with a Broadway Season with multiple Asian heritaged men and women, as LEADS in Musicals AND PLAYS on Broadway.

TFP DOES NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HERSELF!

It is really, some days, a joy to write this blog.

TFP out.

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Categories Diversity