David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwang
David Henry Hwangis a Tony Award-winning American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth11 August 1957
CountryUnited States of America
crazy looks
I'm happy. Which often looks like crazy.
character writing battle
To me to write well is to battle stereotypes. To write well is to create three-dimensional characters that seem human.
rights issues goal
. . . I felt I was finally in a position to affect not only the artistic content of the American theatre, but also its institutional structures. This has been an important goal of mine, as there have always been a variety of issues - artistic freedom, author's rights, access by minority groups - which have concerned me and even influenced my decision to become a playwright in the first place.
dream want way
I define the American dream as the ability to imagine a way that you want your life to turn out, and have a reasonable hope that you can achieve that.
men opera roles
Why, in the Peking Opera, are women's roles played by men?...Because only a man knows how a woman is supposed to act.
Now I see -- we are always most revolted by the things hidden within us.
heart writing stories
It's the stories that make my heart beat faster ...those are the ones to write about
ideas car theatre
I've never quite understood the idea of a "season." Whenever an artistic director says to me, 'I have this slot,' I always start to feel we're parking cars or something.
college chinese
Ive studied Chinese in college, but basically, Im not bilingual.
prisoner our-time
We are all prisoners of our time and place.
yellow faces mark
Yellow Face marks my summation of multiculturalism.
religious parent chinese
Chinese culture in general is not very religious. Confucianism is more a code of ethics than a religion, and ancestor worship is a way for parents to control you even after theyre dead.
growing-up hair chinese
I knew I was Chinese, but growing up, it never occurred to me that that had any particular implication or that it should differentiate me in any way. I thought it was a minor detail, like having red hair.
growing-up character racism
I felt pretty good growing up. I didnt feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.