Latest news with #RoundaboutTheatre
CTV News
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Daniel Dae Kim making history at the Tony Awards and pushing for Asian representation on Broadway
Nominee Daniel Dae Kim attends the 78th Annual Tony Awards Meet the Nominees press event at the Sofitel New York on May 8, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) The first monologue Daniel Dae Kim ever performed was by David Henry Hwang. He had to do one for his college summer program at the National Theater Institute in Connecticut. Kim chose a scene from 'FOB,' Hwang's play about the assimilation struggles of a Chinese American. So, it's fitting that 35 years later Hwang — the first Asian American to win the Tony Award for best play — would be the one to bring Kim into the Tony spotlight. Known for TV series such as 'Lost' and 'Hawaii Five-0,' Kim, 56, is the first Asian nominee in the category of best leading actor in a play in the Tonys' 78-year history for his work in a Broadway revival of Hwang's 'Yellow Face.' 'I can imagine a lot of things, but I did not imagine this scenario with David,' Kim said. 'That I would be in a play with him, that we would both be nominated for Tony Awards and we would be able to call each other friends.' In the semi-autobiographical show, which ran last fall at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Kim played a satirical version of Hwang. The show also scored nods for best play revival and best performance by a featured actor in a play for first-time nominee Francis Jue, an original 2007 cast member. You could not have scripted a better ending for a play that was written in response to the musical 'Miss Saigon' casting white actors as Asian characters. Kim's performance was filmed in November and PBS will broadcast 'Yellow Face' on Friday. The Tonys, airing on June 8, also will put a spotlight on the play. Asian representation and the Tonys This groundbreaking nomination seems like the perfect karmic reward for Kim, who has spent years advocating for greater Asian representation. At the pandemic's height, the Korean American actor was a constant media presence speaking out against anti-Asian hate. He also jump-started a campaign for veteran actor James Hong, then 91, to get a Hollywood star. He woke up to the news of his nomination after people were able to get around his phone's 'do not disturb' mode. His competition includes George Clooney and Cole Escola. 'It'd be a huge surprise if I won, but I will say that even getting the nomination is a win especially when you put it in the context of our community and what this means for Asian Americans,' said Kim, whose previous Broadway credits include 'The King and I.' He admits it's surprising and 'a little sad' that no other Asian actor has been in this category. There's still never been an Asian nominee for best lead actress in a play. 'Of course, the barrier we really want to break is to actually have someone win, and hopefully that happens sooner rather than later, whether it's me or not.' Kim is one of seven Asian acting nominees this year. Only three acting trophy winners have been Asian. One was Lea Salonga for 'Miss Saigon' and another was Ruthie Ann Miles for 'The King and I.' Coincidentally, the first was BD Wong for best featured actor in Hwang's Tony-winning play, 'M. Butterfly.' Hwang takes special pride in helping actors break glass ceilings. 'I get to feel like, 'Oh, maybe I'm actually able to make a difference' and change the culture in the way that my little-kid-self would have loved but would not have thought possible,' said Hwang, who now has his fourth career Tony nomination. He was last nominated 22 years ago. Bringing Asian Americans into the theater For a long time, Hwang felt the only way to get a play with Asian characters made was to set it outside America because 'Broadway audiences are not interested in Asian Americans.' Historically, productions with Asian ensembles have been musicals set in 'the exotic lands of Asia,' such as 'The King and I,' said Esther Kim Lee, a theater studies professor at Duke University and author of 'The Theatre of David Henry Hwang.' 'Flower Drum Song,' set in San Francisco, was an exception but the songs and book were by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Hwang actually revised the book in 2002. 'It's 2025. We finally see an actual Asian American play with an Asian American lead,' Lee said. 'You can have 'The King and I' and have great actors and they may get Tony Awards, but it's really not about Asian Americans. That this has happened with 'Yellow Face' is just incredible.' The show's two-month run brought the Roundabout a 50% increase in first-time audience members — 'a powerful statement,' Kim said. 'One of the nicest compliments I would hear after the show when I would go to the stage door is, 'This is the first Broadway show I've ever seen,'' Kim said. 'That meant a lot to me because bringing Asian Americans into the theater is important and bringing younger people into the theater is important just for the health of theater in general.' 'Yellow Face' has new relevance Besides discussing whitewash casting, 'Yellow Face' examines the pain of the main character's immigrant father. The role is based on Hwang's father's experience being wrongly accused of laundering money for China. With the current anti-immigrant and anti-DEI climate, the show's airing on PBS feels especially vital to Hwang. 'Whenever there's a conflict between America and any Asian country, Asian Americans are the first to get targeted,' Hwang said. PBS is also where in 2020 the five-episode history docuseries 'Asian Americans' aired for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Kim was a narrator and remains 'unequivocally proud' of the project. Five years after the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, Kim sees 'Yellow Face' simply making it to Broadway as a victory. 'I don't want to get preachy, but I will say that the goal with spotlighting and elevating people of color is not to threaten the establishment,' Kim said. 'The goal was really to say everyone can contribute to our society. Everyone can be a positive force for change.' Terry Tang, The Associated Press
CBS News
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
David Hyde Pierce, the very model of a modern Major-General, in "Pirates! The Penzance Musical"
All David Hyde Pierce has to do is step out on stage, and he gets applause, even before he launches into the idiotic tongue-twister from "The Pirates of Penzance": I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical With practically no expression on his face, babbling away, all kinds of commotion around him, he's funny . I asked, "Why do you think 'less is more' can be funny?" "Well, I think so much of theater, rightly, is MORE," Pierce replied. "Sometimes, what's unexpected in theater is someone doing less." "Is there a temptation to overact?" "Always," he said. "You remind me of a great line from 'Frasier,' which was, 'If less is more, think how much more MORE will be!'" It is thanks to his 11-year run on the TV mega-hit "Frasier" that Pierce has the recognition, and can afford to pick and choose his roles. He's the Major-General in "Pirates! The Penzance Musical," a jazzy re-working of the Gilbert & Sullivan classic, transplanted to New Orleans. Pierce showed us one of the Gilbert & Sullivan scores from his summer camp from the 1970s ("It's almost as old as I am"), which was also the score he used for an episode of "Frasier" where he, Kelsey Grammer and David Ogden Stiers sang from "Penzance." I asked, "What does Gilbert & Sullivan mean to you?" "Hmm. Well, it must mean something, 'cause it's … I'm getting emotional," Pierce replied. "Thinking about the question, I guess it's just, it's just because it's been threaded through my life for so long." In his dressing room at the Roundabout Theatre, the wall is covered with photographs of people who were in the dressing room before: "Famous people, a lot of them dear friends of mine," he said. "I'll be up there eventually. Tradition is very important to us. It's being aware that you're part of something bigger." Pierce's "Pirates" dressing room is full of nods to the emotional touchstones that define him, including one of the most important: a photograph of him talking to his dad about a show he was doing, "at a time when I didn't even know that that's what I was going into, had no idea what was lying ahead," he said. Pierce's father and his grandfather were amateur performers. "The disease runs in the family," he said. "I just hadn't been diagnosed, I guess!" He set out to be a concert pianist. He still plays every day, but decided to become an actor instead while he was a student at Yale. And what brought him to comedy? "I think it has to do with what I was drawn to," Pierce said. "I watched reruns of 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'All in the Family.' When I was a teenager, 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' came to American television on PBS, and my head blew off. I loved Alec Guinness. Oh, and Buster Keaton. Oh my God, Buster Keaton!" It's impossible not to see a hint of Buster Keaton in Pierce's famous ironing board scene from "Frasier": Pierce said, "I do want people to be able to laugh." "Why? What does that mean to you? Why is it important?" "I guess it's the perception of connection," he said. "For example, doing a comic film is not nearly as enjoyable for me as doing a comic play. In a comic play, you feel from the audience the connection. That's what I'm in it for. That's where I started out. I love that." For almost as long as he's been in it, his partner along the way, his husband since 2008, has been actor-writer Brian Hargrove. They met at an audition, became friends, and only later discovered they were both gay. "Brian had me over to dinner at his apartment to do my taxes," said Pierce. "I used to have a tax business as well as an actor," said Hargrove. "That's not a metaphor; that's actually what he was doing. Tax practitioner! And then we were going to see this movie, and it came up. We went back to his apartment, and then, as Brian puts it, I never left." That was in 1983. It was Hargrove who suggested moving to California, which led to Pierce being cast as Dr. Niles Crane alongside Kelsey Grammer in "Frasier." Forty years, four Emmys and two Tonys later, he chose not to be in the "Frasier" reboot. At the time he was playing Julia Child's husband, Paul, on HBO. "I've been very happy with what originally came to me, and then when I've been able to make choices in my career and the choices I've made," Pierce said. "My creativity is fueled by change and by diversity." Which is why David Hyde Pierce said yes to "Pirates" – and a new chance to make people laugh in one of his old favorites. For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury, Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century; But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General! For more info: Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Ed Givnish.
