Celebrating Asian Pacific Americans and their Contributions to the Arts
Since 1978 in the U.S., we have celebrated Asian Pacific American Heritage Month during May. I have the good fortune to know and work with many team members of Asian/Pacific Island heritage and am consistently learning and growing from collaborating with each of them. They are among a wide group of Asian/Pacific Island entertainment professionals in a wide variety of disciplines whose talents I want to highlight this month — 31 of them, one for each day.
Anna May Wong was the first actor of Asian descent to be the leading star of an American television series when she starred on the television series The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong.
Women’s History
Town and Country
Harper’s
Sessue Hayakawa was the first and one of the few Asian American/Asian actors to find stardom in the United States and Europe and was also the first leading Asian male actor in the United States. He became the first male sex symbol of Hollywood long before and the precursor to Rudolph Valentino. His fame rivaled that of Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.
Asian Cinevision
Silent Era
The Film Experience
Jon Chu directed the worldwide phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians, a film that is the first non-period studio picture in more than 25 years to feature an all-Asian cast, and it represents a new chapter in Chu’s 10-year career. His next film is the highly anticipated adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical In the Heights for Warner Bros, scheduled for release next year.
Justin Lin is a Taiwanese-American film director whose films have grossed $2 billion worldwide. He is best known for his work on Better Luck Tomorrow, The Fast and the Furious 3–6 and Star Trek Beyond. He is also known for his work on television shows like Community and the second season of True Detective.
Wired
UCLA School of Theatre, Film & Television
Stage13 YouTube
Jennifer Yuh Nelson is a Korean-American storyboard artist and film director. She directed Kung Fu Panda 2, Kung Fu Panda 3, and The Darkest Minds. Yuh is the second woman to solely direct an animated feature from a major Hollywood studio.
Creative Spark YouTube
Great Women Animators
SyFy
Philip Ahn, with over 180 film and television credits between 1935 and 1978, was one of the most recognizable and prolific Asian-American character actors of his time. He was the first Korean American film actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Life Story YouTube
KCrush
LA Times
Awkwafina is an American actress, comedian, internet personality, rapper, author, and television host. She was the first of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. She was recognized with this award for her work in the 2019 film, The Farewell.
Kazu Hiro is a Japanese-born American special make-up effects artist and visual artist. He won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the biographical films Darkest Hour and Bombshell after earning nominations for the comedies Click and Norbit.
David Henry Hwang is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won a Tony Award for Best Play in 1988 for M. Butterfly and three Obie Awards. Three of his works — M. Butterfly, Yellow Face, and Soft Power — have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Time
American Theatre
The Observer
Telly Leung started his Broadway career in 2002 as a performer in Flower Drum Song. He later went on to perform in Pacific Overtures, Wicked, Rent (both on Broadway as a performer and as Angel at the Hollywood Bowl), Godspell, and originate the role of Young Sam in George Takei’s Allegiance.
OnStage
Call Me Adam
Bespoke Black Book
George Takei’s personal experiences inspired Allegiance, which ran on Broadway from October 2015 to February 2016, and is set during the Japanese American internment of World War II (with a framing story set in the present day).
Phillipa Soo starred as Natasha Rostova in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 in the Off-Broadway productions, and as Elizabeth Schuyler in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton, winning a cast Grammy Award for musical theater album.
Rose and Ivy
Deadline
CinemaBlend
Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean film director, producer and screenwriter. His films are characterized by emphasis on social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He was first South Korean to be nominated and win for Best Director for Parasite.
Vulture
The Guardian
Hollywood Reporter
Linda Cho is a Tony award winning costume designer based in New York City. In 2014 she won the Tony Award for the musical A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder. In 2017 she was nominated for a Tony, Outer Critics’ Circle and Drama Desk for Best Costume Design of the musical Anastasia.
Steven Yuen is a South Korean-born American actor. He initially rose to prominence for his roles as Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead and Ben in the film Burning. He was the first Asian American actor nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for Minari.
Haing Ngor was a Cambodian American gynecologist, obstetrician, actor and author. He is best remembered for winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for his debut performance in the film The Killing Fields. He was the first Asian actor to win supporting actor.
Hollywood Reporter
Vice
Pop Matters
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director, producer, and screenwriter. During his filmmaking career he has received international critical and popular acclaim and a range of accolades including being the first Asian and first person of color to win the Best Director Oscar for Life of Pi in 2013.
Kai Harada has created sound design for Broadway productions of Head Over Heels, The Band’s Visit, Amélie, Sunday in the Park with George, Allegiance, Gigi, Fun Home, On the Town, First Date, Follies (for which he received Tony and Drama Desk nominations) and Million Dollar Quartet. He won the Tony for Best Sound Design for a Musical for The Band’s Visit in 2018.
Theatre Trip
Contemporary Musical Theatre
Live Design
Willa Kim studied painting and illustration on scholarship at what is now called the California Institute of the Arts. After graduation she began working in studios and at the insistence of one of her instructors, began designing for the theatre. What has resulted is a most prolific career as a designer for dance, theatre, opera and television. She was recently inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame, making her one of only a handful of costume designers so honored. Kim won Tony Awards for Tommy Tune’s The Will Rogers Follies and Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.
America Theatre
NY Times
Primary Stages
Ming Cho Lee was a Chinese-American theatrical set designer who won the Tony for Best Scenic Design for K2 in 1983 and received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2013.
America Theatre
Total Theatre
Hollywood Reporter
Mia Katigbak is the artistic producing director and cofounder of the award-winning, New York–based National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO).
Frank Chin is an author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre. He was the founder of the Asian American Theater Company, a San Francisco based company established in 1973.
James Hong is an American actor, producer and director. He has worked in numerous productions in American media since the 1950s, playing a variety of East Asian roles. He is also one of the founders of the East West Players in Los Angeles, CA.
Hasan Minhaj is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. Best known for his Netflix show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, he has won two Peabody Awards and two Webby Awards.
Shoba Narayan is an up and coming South Asian stage actor. She was in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, the first South Asian in a principal role since Bombay Dreams, was Eliza Hamilton in the touring version of Hamilton, and is currently in Wicked on Broadway.
Broadway
Broadway Box
India Abroad
Jenna Ushkowitz is a Tony Award winning producer for Once on This Island, and also appeared on Broadway in The King and I and Waitress and on television in Glee.
The Wrap
Lewis Howes
The Straits Times
Chloe Zhao is a Chinese filmmaker, known primarily for her work in independent American films. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, premiered at Sundance Film Festival. She is the second woman, and first woman of color to win Best Director Oscar for Nomadland.
Tisa Chang is a Chinese American actress and theatre director born in Chongqing. Following a career as an actor on Broadway she is now the Artistic Producing Director for the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre.
Primary Stages
America Theatre
The Free Library
Lea Salonga is a Filipina singer and actress, best known for her roles in musical theatre, for supplying the singing voices of two Disney Princesses, and as a recording artist and television performer. She won Best Actress in a Musical for Miss Saigon in 1991.
New York Lifestyles
The Smart Local
Us
Jhett Tolentino is a Filipino entertainment producer based in New York City, who is also known for being the second Philippine-born awardee of the Tony Award. He has won three Tony Awards since his Broadway debut in March 2013 — Best Musical, A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder, 2014; Best Revival of a Play, A Raisin in the Sun, 2014; Best Play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, 2013.
FYLPro
Herald GOA
Philippine Canadian Inquirer
Baayork Lee is an American actress, singer, dancer, choreographer, theatre director, and author who in 2017 was awarded the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for charitable work. She also played Connie Wong in the original company of A Chorus Line.
