David Henry
Hwang

Playwright David Henry Hwang is best know as the author of M. Butterfly, which won the Tony, Drama Desk, John Gassner, and Outer Critics Circle Awards (1988) and was nominated as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (1989). Although he is known as the premier Asian American dramatist, Hwang has had a varied career, including as the most-produced living opera librettist and the author of a story about the life of the Spanish playwright/poet Federico García Lorca. Hwang’s Yellow Face (2007) is a biting comedy about cultural identity in which a playwright inadvertently casts a white actor in the Asian lead role. The play received an Obie Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (2008).

Portrait photo courtesy the artist.