CHINGLISH Begins Tonight at East West Players

East West Players (EWP), the nation's longest-running professional theatre of color in the country and the largest producing organization of Asian American artistic work, re-opens the hugely popular production "Chinglish" with a revised ending by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang and directed by Jeff Liu. The critically-acclaimed production will have a limited run the first two weeks of December, starting tonight, December 3 through Sunday, December 13.

"When it comes to the pace of change, one year in China equals four years in the outside world. It's been four years since 'Chinglish' played on Broadway, and the U.S.-China relationship has evolved at a breakneck pace, including puncturing the myth of Chinese economic vulnerability in 2015," says playwright David Henry Hwang. "I wanted to revise the ending of my play to reflect this new complexity, and am grateful that the success of East West Players' production has given me an opportunity to premiere these changes. Our two nations now seem joined at the economic hip, but we travel together into an uncertain future."

"Our production of 'Chinglish' was very special in that we attracted both English speaking and Mandarin speaking audiences," says Tim Dang, Producing Artistic Director. "It is rare that any changes are made after a play has received a Broadway run and has been published. However, for these 10 performances, audiences will experience an exclusive world premiere ending."

"Chinglish" is a comedy about an American businessman who is desperately looking to score a lucrative contract for his family's firm travels to China only to learn how much he doesn't understand: his translators are unreliable, his consultant may be a fraud, and he is captivated by Xi, the beautiful, seemingly supportive government official who talks the talk - but what is she saying, anyway?
The original cast will return for this run, featuring Kara Wang (Chen Kaige's Caught in the Web and Daniel Hsia's Shanghai Calling) as Xi Yan, Matthew Jaeger as Daniel Cavanaugh, Jeff Locker as Peter Timms, Ben Wang as Cai Guolang, Ewan Chung as Bing and Judge Xu Geming, Leann Lei as Miss Qian and Prosecutor Li, Joy Yao as Zhao.

The design team includes: set design by Hana Sooyeon Kim, lighting design by Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, costume design by Yuheng Dai, sound design by Dennis Yen, and props by Michael O'Hara. Stage manager is Sylvia Trinh.

Generous support for this production is provided by the S. Mark Taper Foundation Endowment for East West Players.

All performances will be staged at the David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center of the Arts at 120 Judge John Aiso Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. The performance schedule is as follows:

• Thursday, December 3 at 8:00 PM
• Friday, December 4 at 8:00 PM
• Saturday, December 5 at 2:00 PM & 8:00 PM
• Sunday, December 6 at 2:00 PM
• Wednesday, December 9 at 8:00 PM
• Thursday, December 10 at 8:00 PM
• Friday, December 11 at 8:00 PM
• Sunday, December 13 at 2:00 PM & 7:00 PM

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