According to the Chinese Almanac, Tuesday, October 11th is a good day for starting a business. So the producers of CHINGLISH, the new comedy about an American businessman doing business in China by Tony Award-winning and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), have decided to start performances today.
The play will play at the Longacre Theatre (220 West 48th Street) making its Broadway premiere following its world premiere production at Goodman Theatre in Chicago this summer.
CHINGLISH is about an American businessman arrives in a bustling Chinese province looking to score a lucrative contact for his family's sign-making firm. He soon finds that the complexities of such a venture far outstrip the expected differences in language, customs and manners - and calls into questions even the most basic assumptions of human conduct.
"The U.S. and China are at a critical moment in history-each nation is deeply interested in, but knows very little about, the other," said playwright David Henry Hwang. "CHINGLISH was born from the many visits I've made to China over the past five or six years to witness the exciting changes there. During one visit, I toured a new arts center where everything was first-rate-except for the ridiculously translatEd English signs. It was at that moment that I thought of writing this play."
Leigh Silverman, who directed Lisa Kron's Well on Broadway and won a 2011 OBIE Award for directing both Go Back To Where You Are and In The Wake, will return to direct the Broadway production.
CHINGLISH ran at Goodman Theatre where it began performances on June 18th, officially opened on June 27th and ran through July 31st.
The design team includes: Set Designer David Korins (Lombardi, Passing Strange), Costume Designer Anita Yavich (Anna in the Tropics) and Lighting Designer Brian MacDevitt (The Book of Mormon, Fences, Goodman: Long Day's Journey into Night).
The Broadway production will be produced by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Roy Gottlieb, Barry & Carole Kaye and David Stoller in association with Goodman Theatre.
CHINGLISH has been developed in association with The Public Theater.
David Henry Hwang'S plays include M. Butterfly (1988 Tony Award, 1989 Pulitzer Prize Finalist), Golden Child (1998 Tony Award nomination, 1997 OBIE Award), Yellow Face (2008 OBIE Award, 2008 Pulitzer Prize Finalist), FOB (1981 OBIE Award), The Dance and the Railroad (1982 Drama Desk Award nomination), Family Devotions (1982 Drama Desk Award nomination) and Bondage. He wrote the libretti for the Broadway musicals Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida (co-author), Rodgers & Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song (revival, 2002 Tony Award nomination) and Disney's Tarzan. In opera, his libretti include four works with composer Philip Glass: The Voyage (Metropolitan Opera), 1000 Airplanes on the Roof, Sound and Beauty (seen in Chicago at the Court Theatre), and Icarus at The Edge of Time; as well as Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar (two 2007 Grammy Awards), Unsuk Chin's Alice in Wonderland (Opernwelt 2007 "World Premiere of the Year") and Howard Shore's The Fly. Hwang penned the feature films "M. Butterfly," "Golden Gate" and "Possession" (co-author), and co-wrote the song "Solo" with Prince. He sits on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, and served by appointment of President Clinton on the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Leigh Silverman Previous Broadway: Lisa Kron's Well. Recent world premieres: In The Wake (Center Theatre Group/Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Public Theatre; OBIE Award, Lortel Nomination); Go Back To Where You Are (Playwrights Horizons:
OBIE Award); From Up Here (MTC; Drama Desk Nomination); Coraline (MCC/True Love); Beebo Brinker Chronicles (Hourglass Group/ 37 Arts); Creature (New Georges/P73); Hunting and Gathering (Primary Stages); Well (The Public Theater, The Huntington Theatre and ACT); The Retributionists (Playwrights Horizons); Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons and Seattle Repertory Theatre); Oedipus At Palm Springs (NYTW); Jump/Cut (Woolly Mammoth Theatre/Theater J and Women's Project); also Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (Second Stage Theatre). West End: Wit (Vaudeville Theatre). This marks Leigh's second premiere production of a work by David Henry Hwang having previously directed Yellow Face at the Center Theater Group and The Public Theater.
