Video: Yellow Face on Broadway Is Filled With Easter Eggs for 'Theatre Nerds'

When Daniel Dae Kim agreed to play Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang in Yellow Face on Broadway, Hwang had just one direction for him: "He said, 'Don’t do an impression of me, don’t grow a beard, don’t get funky hair,'" says the actor. See what the star and the cast of Yellow Face have to say about the show in the video above.

Hwang is just one of the many real-life figures who are portrayed in this stage "mockumentary," in Hwang's words, of some real Broadway history. What it portrays is the 1990 protest of Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer in Miss Saigon, where Hwang was a prominent voice opposing Pryce's casting. It also dramatizes the circumstances of Hwang's short-lived 1993 Broadway play Face Value.

“Yellow Face really stems from my biggest flop, one of the biggest flops in Broadway history, Face Value….that closed during previews. I was trying to write a comedy of mistaken racial identity, and it was a big disaster," explains Hwang. He then decided to poke fun at himself and the entire endeavor by writing Yellow Face, which premiered in Los Angeles in 2007. This new production at the Todd Haimes Theatre will be the play's belated Broadway premiere.

Greg Keller, Marinda Anderson, Shannon Tyo, Francis Jue, David Henry Hwang, Ryan Eggold, Leigh Silverman, Kevin Del Aguila, and Daniel Dae Kim Vi Dang

In Yellow Face, a playwright, named DHH, accidentally casts a white actor to play an Asian character in his play, Face Value. Hijinks ensue. And the play features many real-life people, such as actor Jane Krakowski, theatre critic Frank Rich, and former New York Mayor Ed Koch. In short, says director Leigh Silverman, "There’s so many inside jokes for theatre nerds inside of this show."

As actor Shannon Tyo, who plays an actor named Leah, in the show, jokingly puts it: "As an actor watching other actors play actors in this show, it makes me both simultaneously proud and ashamed of us all."

Yellow Face also stars Kevin Del Aguila as Actor A, Ryan Eggold as Marcus, Francis Jue as HYH, Marinda Anderson as Actor B, Greg Keller as Reporter. It opens on Broadway October 1. The production is a limited engagement through November 24.

The creative team includes set designer Arnulfo Maldonado, costume designer Anita Yavich, lighting designer Lap Chi Chu, sound designers and composers Caroline Eng and Kate Marvin, and projection designer Yee Eun Nam. Charles Means is production stage manager.

For more information, visit RoundaboutTheatre.org.