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87-531: 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 . He has one Tony Award ( M. Butterfly ) and two other nominations ( Golden Child and Flower Drum Song ). Three of his works ( M. Butterfly , Yellow Face , and Soft Power ) have been finalists for

174-682: A Special Tony Award , the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre , and the Isabelle Stevenson Award . The awards were founded by theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton and are named after Antoinette "Tony" Perry , an actress, producer and theatre director who was co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing. The trophy consists of a spinnable medallion, with faces portraying an adaptation of

261-585: A Tony Award , recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre . The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in Manhattan . The ceremony is usually held in June. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theatre . Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including

348-482: A murder mystery play which is the longest-running West End show , it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Contemporary playwrights in the United States are affected by recent declines in theatre attendance. No longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical productions must use ticket sales as

435-488: A Tony. The name stuck." Nevertheless, the awards were sometimes referred to as the "Perry Awards" in their early years. The 1st Tony Awards was held on April 6, 1947, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City. The first prizes were "a scroll, cigarette lighter and articles of jewelry such as 14-carat gold compacts and bracelets for the women, and money clips for the men". ATW co-founder Louise Heims Beck

522-468: A bit more significant... By adding height, now someone can grip the Tony, raise it over their head in triumph and not worry about keeping their grip. Believe me, you can tell the difference. For the specific Tony Awards presented to a Broadway production, awards are given to the author and up to two of the producers free of charge. All other members of the above-the-title producing team are eligible to purchase

609-476: A chance to win the important awards of Best Play or Best Musical (or Best Score or Best Book for musicals). On the other hand, some people feel that allowing plays and musicals that have been frequently produced to be eligible as "new" gives them an unfair advantage because they will have benefited from additional development time as well as additional familiarity with the Tony voters. The Tony Awards Administration Committee has twenty-four members: ten designated by

696-512: A form of playwright. Outside of the Western world there is Indian classical drama , with one of the oldest known playwrights being Śudraka , whose attributed plays can be dated to the second century BC. The Nāṭya Shāstra , a text on the performing arts from between 500BC-500AD, categorizes playwrights as being among the members of a theatre company, although playwrights were generally the highest in social status, with some being kings. In

783-557: A full critical success, the work inspired another generation of Asian Americans to re-imagine this musical. It was adapted from the novel The Flower Drum Song by C. Y. Lee , and tells the culture clash encountered by a Chinese family living in San Francisco . The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization allowed Hwang to significantly rework the plot, while retaining character names and songs. His 2002 version —both an homage to

870-514: A lifetime honor to all above-the-title producers, to ones who had been active in the previous 10 years. This action disenfranchised scores of Tony voters, including Gail Berman , Harve Brosten , Dick Button , Tony Lo Bianco , and Raymond Serra ). To be eligible for Tony Award consideration, a production must have officially opened on Broadway by the eligibility date that the Management Committee establishes each year. For example,

957-830: A male Chinese opera singer. Shi purportedly convinced Boursicot that he was a woman throughout their twenty-year relationship. The play won numerous awards for Best Play: a Tony Award (which Hwang was the first Asian American to win), the Drama Desk Award , the John Gassner Award, and the Outer Critics Circle Award . It was the first of three of his works to become a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The success of M. Butterfly prompted Hwang's interests in many other different directions, including work for opera , film , and

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1044-506: A number that changes slightly from year to year. The number was decreased in 2009 when the first-night critics were excluded as voters. That decision was changed, and members of the New York Drama Critics' Circle were invited to be Tony voters beginning in the 2010–2011 season. The eligible Tony voters include the board of directors and designated members of the advisory committee of the American Theatre Wing, members of

1131-553: A pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston or Thomas Dekker : Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are

1218-547: A person who has won all four is said to have won the EGOT . The Tony Awards are the U.S. equivalent of the United Kingdom 's Laurence Olivier Awards and France 's Molière Awards . Kimberly Akimbo Previous Best Play Leopoldstadt The Outsiders Best Play Stereophonic As of 2014 , there were 26 categories of awards, in addition to several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947,

1305-548: A play being produced in New York. His first play was produced at the Okada House dormitory (named Junipero House at the time) at Stanford University after he briefly studied playwriting with Sam Shepard and María Irene Fornés . In summer 1978, he studied playwriting with Sam Shepard and attended Padua Hills Playwrights Festival, both of which led him to write his first plays such as FOB . Hwang's early plays concerned

1392-654: A playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. Today, theatre companies have new play development programs meant to develop new American voices in playwriting. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an effort to showcase various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights for residencies. Funding through national organizations, such as

1479-553: A significant portion of the book (by Linda Woolverton ). Aida (with music and lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice ) opened in 2000 and proved highly profitable. His next project was a radical revision of Richard Rodgers , Oscar Hammerstein, II , and Joseph Fields ' musical Flower Drum Song . Although successful when introduced in the 1950s and early 1960s, it had become dated. The Civil Rights Movement and other cultural changes had disrupted continuing stereotypical portrayals of Asian American communities. Though it had never been

1566-525: A source of income, which has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002–03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973–74. Playwrights commonly encounter difficulties in getting their shows produced and often cannot earn a living through their plays alone, leading them to take up other jobs to supplement their incomes. Many playwrights are also film makers . For instance, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock began his career as

1653-562: A stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities , of action, place, and time. This meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed

1740-723: A theatrical commission for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Arena Stage in Washington, DC. This was a musical version of Aimee Mann 's album The Forgotten Arm , with Mann and Paul Bryant. He also worked on screenplays for DreamWorks Animation and directors Justin Lin and Jonathan Caouette . In 2013, a production of Yellow Face premiered on YouTube . It was directed and adapted by Jeff Liu , and featured Sab Shimono among other actors. In 2014 two new Hwang plays were premiered. The first, Kung Fu , about

1827-827: A three-time finalist without winning. Hwang has been awarded numerous grants, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts , a Guggenheim Fellowship and Rockefeller Foundations, the New York State Council on the Arts , and the Pew Charitable Trusts . He has been honored with awards from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund , the Association for Asian Pacific American Artists,

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1914-597: A writer and consulting producer of the Golden Globe -winning television series The Affair and in 1993 wrote a song "Solo" in association with Prince . In the fall of 2016, the San Francisco Opera premiered Dream of the Red Chamber , an opera by Hwang and Bright Sheng, based on the eighteenth-century Chinese novel of the same name. In the summer of 2016, Hwang became the chair of the board of

2001-632: Is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). Playwright William Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Most playwrights of

2088-438: Is an archaic English term for a craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright ). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in

2175-496: Is named after Antoinette Perry , nicknamed Tony, an actress, director, producer and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946. As her official biography at the Tony Awards website states, "At [ Warner Bros. story editor] Jacob Wilk's suggestion, [Pemberton] proposed an award in her honor for distinguished stage acting and technical achievement. At the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it

2262-668: Is not "determined… to be a 'classic' or in the historical or popular repertoire", as determined by the Administration Committee (per Section (2g) of the Rules and Regulations). The rule about "classic" productions was instituted by the Tony Award Administration Committee in 2002, and stated (in summary) "A play or musical that is determined ... to be a 'classic' or in the historical or popular repertoire shall not be eligible for an award in

2349-572: Is selected by the Tony Awards Administration Committee. Nominators serve three-year terms and are asked to see every new Broadway production. The Nominating Committee for the 2012–13 Broadway season (named in June 2012) had 42 members; the Nominating Committee for the 2014–2015 season has 50 members and was appointed in June 2014. There are approximately 868 eligible Tony Award voters (as of 2014),

2436-542: Is still useful to playwrights today is the " French scene ", which is a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Notable playwrights: Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in

2523-546: The 2024 presidential election . Playwright The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . William Shakespeare is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across the world. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye , from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word wright

2610-708: The American Theatre Wing . In the Spring of 2018, Hwang's Soft Power premiered at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The music and additional lyrics are by Jeanine Tesori . Its cast is largely Asian. It transferred to Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in September 2019 (previews). In May 2020, it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, making Hwang the first person to be

2697-406: The Ancient Greeks . These early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides . The origins of Athenian tragedy remain obscure, though by

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2784-979: The Asia Society Cultural Achievement Award, the China Institute Blue Cloud Award, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. In 2014, he received the Doris Duke Artist Award. In 2015, he received the 2015 ISPA Distinguished Artist Award. Mr. Hwang sits on the boards of the Dramatists Guild , Young Playwrights Inc., and the Museum Of Chinese in the Americas (MOCA). He conducts interviews on arts-related topics for

2871-502: The Joseph Jefferson Award . Chinglish was largely inspired by Hwang's frequent visits to China and his observations of interactions between Chinese and American people. Ticket sales of Chinglish were conservative. Hwang's short play A Very DNA Reunion was written for the evening of plays The DNA Trail , which was conceived by Jamil Khoury and premiered at the historic Chicago Temple Building . Hwang worked on

2958-1035: The Museum of Chinese in the Americas , the East West Players , the Organization of Chinese Americans , the Media Action Network for Asian Americans, the Center for Migration Studies, the Asian American Resource Workshop, the China Institute, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In 1998, the nation's oldest Asian American theatre company, the East West Players, christened its new mainstage The David Henry Hwang Theatre. Hwang

3045-505: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Theatre Communications Group , encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging playwrights. Playwrights will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting, which allows them to evaluate their own plays and the actors performing them. Cold reading means that the actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it for

3132-657: The Pulitzer Prize for Drama . He was born in 1957 in Los Angeles , California, to Henry Yuan Hwang, the founder of Far East National Bank , and Dorothy Hwang, a piano teacher. The oldest of three children, he has two younger sisters. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Stanford University in 1979 and attended the Yale School of Drama between 1980 and 1981, taking literature classes. He left once workshopping of new plays began, since he already had

3219-485: The musical theatre . Hwang became a frequent collaborator as a librettist with the world-renowned composer Philip Glass . One of M. Butterfly' s Broadway producers, David Geffen , oversaw a film version of the play, which was directed by David Cronenberg . Hwang also wrote an original script, Golden Gate , which was produced by American Playhouse . Hwang wrote an early draft of a screenplay based upon A. S. Byatt 's Booker Prize -winning novel Possession , which

3306-502: The sound design awards in 2014. In 2014, a petition calling for the return of the Sound Design categories received more than 30,000 signatures. Addressing their previous concerns over Tony voters in the category, it was announced that upon the awards' return for the 2017–2018 season, they would be decided by a subset of voters based on their expertise. Some advocates of gender equality and non-binary people have criticized

3393-449: The 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics , in which he analyzed the principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy. He then considered elements of drama: plot ( μύθος mythos ), character ( ἔθος ethos ), thought ( dianoia ), diction ( lexis ), music ( melodia ), and spectacle ( opsis ). Since the myths on which Greek tragedy were based were widely known, plot had to do with

3480-543: The 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. For

3567-555: The American Theatre Wing, ten by The Broadway League, and one each by the Dramatists Guild, Actors' Equity Association, United Scenic Artists and the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. This committee, among other duties, determines eligibility for nominations in all awards categories. The Tony Awards Nominating Committee makes the nominations for the various categories. This rotating group of theatre professionals

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3654-611: The Best Play or Best Musical Category but may be eligible in that appropriate Best Revival category." Shows transferred from Off-Broadway or the West End are eligible as "new", as are productions based closely on films. This rule has been the subject of some controversy, as some shows, such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Violet , have been ruled ineligible for the "new" category, meaning that their authors did not have

3741-485: The Broadway theatre community..." The producers "accept the situation ... because just as much as actually winning a Tony, a performance that lands well with the viewing public can translate into big box-office sales." Producer Robyn Goodman noted that, if the presentation at the ceremony shows well and the show wins a Tony, "you're going to spike at the box office". The awards met further criticism when they eliminated

3828-561: The Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces

3915-473: The Railroad , which tells the story of a former Chinese opera star working as a coolie laborer in the 19th-century American West, and Family Devotions , a darkly comic take on the effects of Western religion on a Chinese-American family. This was nominated for the Drama Desk Award . Those three plays added up to what the author described as a "Trilogy of Chinese America." After this, Papp also produced

4002-611: The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn . As a reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. The Italian Renaissance brought about

4089-538: The Tony Awards to be the Oscars of live theatre, critics have suggested that the Tony Awards are primarily a promotional vehicle for a small number of large production companies and theatre owners in New York City . In a 2014 Playbill article, Robert Simonson wrote that "Who gets to perform on the Tony Awards broadcast, what they get to perform, and for how long, have long been politically charged questions in

4176-459: The Tony show sold almost all its advertising slots shortly after CBS announced it would present the three hours. 'It draws upscale premium viewers who are attractive to upscale premium advertisers,' Mr. Sussman said..." The viewership has declined from the early years of its broadcast history (for example, the number of viewers in 1974 was 20 million; in 1999, 9.2 million) but has settled into between six and eight million viewers for most of

4263-420: The ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis , "the act of making". This is the source of the English word poet . Despite Chinese Theatre having performers dated back to the 6th century BC with You Meng , their perspective of theatre was such that plays had no other role than "performer" or "actor", but given that the performers were also the ones who invented their performances, they could be considered

4350-404: The arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was determined by choice and by action. Tragedy is mimesis —"the imitation of an action that is serious". He developed his notion of hamartia , or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist , which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play. There were also a number of secular performances staged in

4437-543: The awards. Audience size for the telecast is generally well below that of the Academy Awards shows, but the program reaches an affluent audience, which is prized by advertisers. According to a June 2003 article in The New York Times : "What the Tony broadcast does have, say CBS officials, is an all-important demographic: rich and smart. Jack Sussman, CBS's senior vice president in charge of specials, said

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4524-614: The comedy and tragedy masks, mounted on a black base with a pewter swivel. The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document "Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wing's Tony Awards", which applies for that season only. The Tony Awards are the New York theatre industry's equivalent to the Emmy Awards for television, the Grammy Awards for music, and the Academy Awards (Oscars) for film, and

4611-501: The cut-off date for eligibility the 2013–2014 season was April 24, 2014. The season for Tony Award eligibility is defined in the Rules and Regulations. In 2020, the 74th Annual Tony Awards were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On August 21, 2020, it was announced that the 74th Annual Tony Awards would take place digitally later in 2020. A Broadway theatre is defined as having 500 or more seats, among other requirements. While

4698-422: The decade of the 2000s. In contrast, the 2009 Oscar telecast had 36.3 million viewers. The Tony Award medallion was designed by art director Herman Rosse and is a mix of mostly brass and a little bronze , with a nickel plating on the outside; a black acrylic glass base, and the nickel-plated pewter swivel. The face of the medallion portrays an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks. Originally,

4785-463: The early 1990s. He wrote it in response to a controversy about the casting of Jonathan Pryce in an Eurasian role in Miss Saigon . Face Value , which included music and lyrics for a musical-within-a-play by Hwang, lost millions of dollars. It was a stumbling block in the careers of Hwang and producer Stuart Ostrow . In Yellow Face , Hwang wrote a semi-autobiographical play, featuring him as

4872-624: The first time, and usually, the technical requirements are minimal. The O'Neill Festival offers summer retreats for young playwrights to develop their work with directors and actors. Playwriting collectives like 13P and Orbiter 3 gather members together to produce, rather than develop, new works. The idea of the playwriting collective is in response to plays being stuck in the development process and never advancing to production. Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre , more commonly known as

4959-581: The governing boards of Actors' Equity Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, United Scenic Artists, and the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers, members of the Theatrical Council of the Casting Society of America and voting members of The Broadway League (in 2000, what was then The League of American Theaters and Producers changed membership eligibility and Tony voting status from

5046-403: The hospital. The attack appeared to be random, as nothing was taken; the assailant was never found. Hwang wrote about the experience in The New York Times . The stabbing also inspired a semi-autobiographical portion of Soft Power , in which the lead character, also named David Henry Hwang, is the victim of a random stabbing. Hwang endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in

5133-438: The latter part of the 16th century. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , and other Sturm und Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior and were part of the German romanticism movement. Aleksandr Ostrovsky was Russia's first professional playwright). Author and playwright Agatha Christie wrote The Moustrap ,

5220-516: The libretto for Tarzan , a musical based on a film by Walt Disney Pictures, which was produced on Broadway. Hwang also collaborated on the multi-media event Icarus at the Edge of Time , adapted from Brian Greene 's novel of the same name. It featured music by Philip Glass and a film by "Al and Al." The piece premiered as part of the World Science Festival . After its major success at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, Hwang's play, Chinglish , quickly made its way to Broadway in October 2011. It won

5307-444: The libretto) by the Korean composer Unsuk Chin . It received its world premiere at the Bavarian State Opera in 2007 and was released on DVD in 2008. Hwang wrote the libretto to Howard Shore 's opera The Fly , based on David Cronenberg 's 1986 film of the same name . The opera premiered on July 2, 2008, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris , France, with Cronenberg as director and Plácido Domingo conducting. Hwang wrote

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5394-453: The life of Bruce Lee , premiered as part of his residency at the Signature Theatre Off-Broadway . The play opened February 24, 2014 in a production directed by Leigh Silverman, and featuring Cole Horibe, who had gained fame in the TV series, So You Think You Can Dance . The second was Cain and Abel , one of many plays included in The Mysteries , a re-telling of Bible stories. Conceived by Ed Sylvanus Iskander, The Mysteries also featured

5481-451: The main character in a media farce about mistaken racial identity. This had been also an important element in Face Value . Yellow Face premiered in Los Angeles in 2007 at the Mark Taper Forum as a co-production with East West Players . It moved Off-Broadway to the Joseph Papp Public Theater , an important venue for Hwang's earlier work. It enjoyed an extended run at the Papp, and won Hwang his third Obie Award for Playwriting. The play

5568-411: The names and number of categories have changed over the years. Some examples: the category Best Book of a Musical was originally called "Best Author (Musical)." The category of Best Costume Design was one of the original awards. For two years, in 1960 and 1961, this category was split into Best Costume Designer (Dramatic) and Best Costume Designer (Musical). It then went to a single category, but in 2005 it

5655-449: The national PBS cable television show Asian America . From 1994 to 2001, he served by appointment of President Bill Clinton on the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Hwang holds honorary degrees from Columbia College Chicago (1998), the American Conservatory Theater (2000), Lehigh University (2011), University of Southern California (2013), and State University of New York at Purchase (2015). In 2012, Hwang

5742-500: The original and a modern re-thinking— won him his third Tony nomination. Though Flower Drum Song is often called the first musical with an all-Asian cast, the original production had cast many non-Asians in leading roles, including Caucasians and an African-American ( Juanita Hall ). But the 2002 revival was produced with an all-Asian cast of actor-singers, and it toured nationally. Hwang's 2007 play Yellow Face relates to his play Face Value , which closed in previews on Broadway in

5829-407: The period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In England, after the interregnum , and Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy. Between

5916-427: The physical award. Sums collected are designed to help defray the cost of the Tony Awards ceremony itself. An award cost $ 400 as of at least 2000, $ 750 as of at least 2009, and, as of 2013, had been $ 2,500 "for several years", according to Tony Award Productions. Source: Tony Awards Official Site, Rules For the purposes of the award, a new play or musical is one that has not previously been produced on Broadway and

6003-435: The results were inconclusive. In 1989, Hwang's father hired then-Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley as a consultant who received a loan from the bank, helping it secure $ 2 million from city funds. When this became a major scandal in the city, however, Bradley returned his $ 18,000 in payments, and resigned from the consulting work. Hwang addresses his father's controversies in his semi-autobiographical 2007 play Yellow Face . Hwang

6090-562: The reverse side had a relief profile of Antoinette Perry; this later was changed to contain the winner's name, award category, production and year. The medallion has been mounted on a black base since 1967. A larger base was introduced and first presented in the 2010 award ceremony. That base is slightly taller – 5 inches (13 cm), up from 3 + 1 ⁄ 4 inches (8.3 cm) – and heavier – 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 pounds (1.6 kg), up from 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 pounds (680 grams). This change

6177-538: The role of the Chinese American and Asian American in the contemporary world. His first play, FOB , explores the contrasts and conflicts between established Asian Americans and " Fresh Off the Boat " new immigrants. The play was developed by the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and premiered in 1980 Off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater . In 1981 it won an Obie Award for Best New American Play. Papp produced four more of Hwang's plays, including two in 1981: The Dance and

6264-414: The rules define a Broadway theatre in terms of its size, not its geographical location, the list of Broadway theatres is determined solely by the Tony Awards Administration Committee. As of the 2016–2017 season, the list consisted solely of 41 theaters: 40 located in the vicinity of Times Square in New York City and Lincoln Center 's Vivian Beaumont Theater . While the theatre-going public may consider

6351-620: The separation of male and female acting categories in the Tony Awards, Academy Awards, and Emmy Awards. Though some commentators worry that gender discrimination would cause men to dominate unsegregated categories, other categories are unsegregated. The Grammy Awards went gender-neutral in 2012, while the Daytime Emmy Awards introduced a single Outstanding Younger Performer in a Drama Series category in 2019 to replace their two gender-specific younger actor and actress categories. In 2023, J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell became

6438-461: The show Sound and Beauty , the omnibus title to two Hwang one-act plays set in Japan . At this time, Hwang started to work on projects for the small screen. A television movie, Blind Alleys , written by Hwang and Frederic Kimball and starring Pat Morita and Cloris Leachman , was produced in 1985 and followed a television version of The Dance and the Railroad . His next play Rich Relations ,

6525-557: The subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of the unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for behavior and language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, and Shakespeare 's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. One structural unit that

6612-913: The work of playwrights Craig Lucas , Dael Orlandersmith , Jose Rivera , and Jeff Whitty . In 2014, Hwang joined the Playwriting Faculty of the Columbia University School of the Arts Theatre Program. He was appointed the director of the Playwriting Concentration and will serve as an Associate Professor of Theatre in Playwriting. Hilton Als of the New Yorker has described him as "the most successful Chinese American playwright this country has produced." In 2016, Hwang became

6699-596: Was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama . Hwang also wrote a new short play, The Great Helmsman for the Papp's night of plays: Ten . Hwang has continued to work steadily in the world of opera and musical theatre, and has written for children's theatre as well. Hwang co-wrote the English-language libretto for an operatic adaptation of Lewis Carroll 's Alice in Wonderland with music (and part of

6786-512: Was divided again. For the category of Best Director of a Play, a single category was for directors of plays and musicals prior to 1960. A newly established non-competitive award, The Isabelle Stevenson Award , was given for the first time at the awards ceremony in 2009. The award is for an individual who has made a "substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations." The category of Best Special Theatrical Event

6873-708: Was featured in an autobiographical series by Boise State University with a summary of his early work, as part of the Western Writers Series , written by Douglas Street. In 2011, Hwang received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a Grand Master of American Theater. In 2012, he was awarded the William Inge Award for Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre,

6960-472: Was his first full-length to feature non-Asian characters. It premiered at the Second Stage Theatre in New York. Hwang's best-known play was M. Butterfly , which premiered on Broadway in 1988. The play is a deconstruction of Giacomo Puccini 's opera Madama Butterfly , alluding to news reports of the 20th-century relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu ,

7047-590: Was implemented to make the award "feel more substantial" and easier to handle at the moment the award is presented to the winners, according to Howard Sherman, the executive director of the American Theatre Wing: We know the physical scale of the Oscars , Emmys and Grammys . While we're not attempting to keep up with the Joneses , we felt this is a significant award, and it could feel and look

7134-516: Was later produced in New York City. It won a 1997 Obie Award for playwriting for Hwang's 1996 off-Broadway production. In 1998 it was produced on Broadway, and was nominated that year for a Tony Award for Best Play. In the new millennium, Hwang had two Broadway successes back-to-back. He was asked by director Robert Falls to help co-write the book for the musical Aida (based upon the opera by Giuseppe Verdi ). In an earlier version, it had failed in regional theatre tryouts. Hwang and Falls re-wrote

7221-485: Was married to Ophelia Chong from 1985 until their divorce in 1989. In 1993, he married actress Kathryn Layng . They have two children together. In November 2015, Hwang was the victim of a stabbing near his home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn . The assailant stabbed Hwang in the neck, severing his vertebral artery , before running from the scene. Hwang was seriously injured and underwent surgery before being discharged from

7308-570: Was named a Fellow of United States Artists . In 2015, Hwang was named a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow. In 2018, Hwang earned induction into the American Theater Hall of Fame . Hwang served on the board of directors for Far East National Bank founded by his father Henry Yuan Hwang. In 1999, American regulators investigated some of the bank's transactions with Chinese banks as possible funding for illegal campaign contributions, Chinese espionage, and other possibilities, but

7395-509: Was originally scheduled to be directed by Sydney Pollack . Years later, director/playwright Neil LaBute and Laura Jones would collaborate on the script for a 2002 film . Throughout the 1990s, Hwang continued to write for the stage, including short plays for the famed Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville . His full-length Golden Child , received its world premiere at South Coast Repertory in 1996. Golden Child

7482-478: Was responsible for over seeing the organization of the first awards. It was not until the third awards ceremony in 1949 that the first Tony medallion was given to award winners. Since 1967, the award ceremony has been broadcast on U.S. national television and includes songs from the nominated musicals, and occasionally has included video clips of, or presentations about, nominated plays. The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League jointly present and administer

7569-500: Was retired as of the 2009–2010 season. The categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical were retired as of the 2014–2015 season. On April 24, 2017, the Tony Awards administration committee announced that the Sound Design Award would be reintroduced for the 2017–2018 season. The award was founded in 1947 by a committee of the American Theatre Wing (ATW) headed by Brock Pemberton. The award

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