Part biography, part comic fantasy, Yellow Face is Hwang's sendup of anti-Asian stereotypes and the traps he falls into searching for acceptance in a not-so-colorblind world. The play starts in the 1990s as the fictional DHH is casting Miss Saigon and unwittingly casts a white actor in the role of the engineer. This happens alongside the real-life investigation of Hwang’s father, the first Asian American to own a federally chartered bank, and the espionage charges against physicist Wen Ho Lee. 

 

TCG will publish the Broadway version of Hwang's incisive play on November 11, 2025. The upcoming release is leaner and more adept at balancing the comedy and seriousness of the stories portrayed. Having originally debuted Off-Broadway nearly two decades ago, Yellow Face remains as poignant as ever.

 

“David Henry Hwang’s Yellow Face remains as vital and incisive today as when it first premiered,” said Emilya Cachapero, Co-Executive Director of National and Global Programming at TCG. “We’re thrilled to partner with The Center for Fiction to celebrate the upcoming Broadway Edition of Yellow Face and to welcome audiences into a conversation not only with Hwang but also with Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and TCG author James Ijames, whose perspective makes this dialogue all the more resonant.”

 

This event is part of an ongoing collaboration between The Center for Fiction and TCG, with past conversations featuring Eboni Booth and Heidi Schreck, Ellen McLaughlin and Kathleen Chalfant, Tony Kushner and Isaac Butler, and many others.

 

In-person tickets are $10 and livestream tickets are $5. Acquire tickets here. For press tickets, please contact Joshua Henry Jenkins at [email protected].

 

Since its founding in 1984, TCG Books has grown to become North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on its book list. The book program commits to the life-long career of its playwrights, keeping all of their plays in print. TCG Books events are supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

David Henry Hwang’s stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face (2007 Off-Broadway, 2024 Broadway revival), Kung Fu, Golden Child, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Aida (libretto co-written with Linda Woolverton and Robert Falls, with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival), and Disney’s Tarzan. Hwang is a Tony Award winner and three-time nominee, a three-time Obie Award winner, and a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the most produced living American opera librettist, whose works have been honored with two Grammy Awards. He co-wrote the Gold Record Solo with the late pop icon Prince, and he worked from 2015–2019 as a writer/consulting producer for the Golden Globe–winning television series The Affair. His newest work, Soft Power, a collaboration with composer Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), premiered at Los Angeles’s Ahmanson Theatre, where it won six Ovation Awards. Its subsequent run at The Public Theatre in NYC received four Outer Critics honors, eleven Drama Desk nominations, a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theatre Album, and was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama

 

The Center for Fiction is a literary nonprofit that brings diverse communities together to develop and share a passion for fiction. Founded in 1821 as the Mercantile Library of New York in Manhattan, the organization is now based in the heart of the Brooklyn cultural district, with a 18,000 sq. ft. facility that offers New Yorkers an immersive cultural experience centered on reading and writing. Throughout the year, The Center for Fiction provides a vast array of public programming, reading groups, and writing workshops. The First Novel Prize and Emerging Writer Fellowships help build literary careers, and KidsRead/KidsWrite programs inspire an early love of reading and writing in public school students with author-led events. In recent years, the organization’s programming has expanded to include storytelling in all its forms, integrating music, theater, dance, film, television, and the visual arts into its exploration of the best of fiction throughout history and today.

 

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the biennial TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson and Alisha Tonsic. www.tcg.org.

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