Spotlights shining on Asian American artists on Broadway

Nicole Scherzinger, who jost will be bringing Sunset Boulevard back to Broadway.

The musical Here Lies Love with its all-Filipino cast last week didn't win any Tonys, Broadway's equivalent to the Oscars,but next year could be a completely different story with the potential of multiple Tony's for Asian American artists.

One thing that Here Lies Love proved is that there is plenty of talented AANHPIs and Broadway producers need not limit their casting to just white or black performers.

        RELATED: 'Here Lies Love' fails to find an audience

However, if you are one of those fans who want to see more Filipino and Asian American presence on the Broadway stages, here are some shows and upcoming productions with AANHPI artists in principal roles to raise questions on calling it The Great White Way.

'The Great Gatsby' with Eva Noblezada 

The musical adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel,stars Eva Noblezada as Daisy Buchanan, the great love of rich playboy Jay Gatsby. Coincidently, Since March 29, the revival has been playing  at the Broadway Theatre, where Here Lies Love recently called home, 

        FYI: Tickets for The Great Gatsby are no sale at Broadway District.

Noblezada has become a fixture on Broadway, where she earned a Tony nominations for Miss Saigon and for the lead of Hadestown when it opened in 2018. As Euridyce, the Filipino American e won a Grammy for the cast album of the same show.

The show features music & lyrics by Tony Award nominees Nathan Tysen (Paradise Square) & Jason Howland (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Little Women), a book by Jonathan Larson Grant winner Kait Kerrigan (The Mad Ones), and is staged by award-winning director Marc Bruni (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) and choreographer Dominique Kelley (Mariah’s Magical Christmas Special, Dancing with the Stars”).

'Maybe Happy Ending' with Darren Criss

Maybe Happy Ending, starring Filipino American performer Darren Criss, will begin previews on Broadway on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, and open on Thursday, October 17, 2024, at the Belasco Theatre (111 W. 44th St.).

It is. a homecoming for Criss who has been spending time on the West Coast where he is from, winning critical praise, which includes an Emmy and Golden Globe for his role as Andrew Cunanan in the 2018 dramatic series of The Assasssination of Gianni Versace. and earned another Emmy nomination for his role in Glee. He also won praise for his stage Broadway and Off-Broadway performances in Hedwig and th Angry Inch (2015), How to succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2012), and most recently, in American Buffalo (2022) and Little Shop of Horrors (2024).

Maybe Happy Ending is the offbeat and captivating story of two outcasts near the end of their warranty who discover that even robots can be swept off their feet. Helmed by visionary director and Tony Award® winner Michael Arden (Parade, Once on This Island), with a dazzling scenic design by Dane Laffrey (A Christmas Carol) and book, music, and lyrics by the internationally acclaimed duo Will Aronson and Hue Park, Maybe Happy Ending is a fresh, original musical about the small things that make any life worth living.

While Criss is undoubtedly the "star" name attached to the production, the musical also has  Korean American Hue Parkl playing the female lead. Another Filipino American, Dez Duron; rounds out thethree main charcters in the cast.

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'Sunset Boulevard' with Nicole Scherzinger

Nicole Scherzinger, who currently stars in the London production of Sunset Boulevard, will reprise her role as faded silent-screen star Norma Desmond for New York audiences. It will be the singer's Broadway debut.

“This bravura new revival belongs to the here and now. Nicole Scherzinger gives a career-defining performance,” writes the New York Times.

Based on the acclaimed Billy Wilder film, Andrew Lloyd Webber's lush and brooding Tony Award ® – winning Best Musical is a noir-esque journey to Hollywood's glamorous past.

“It has truly been a lifelong dream of mine to perform on Broadway. So, to be bringing this iconic production to NYC with my London co-stars and our cutting-edge director Jamie Lloyd is a pinnacle moment for me in my career,” said the Hawaii-born Scherzinger, who won the Olivier for her role.

Scherzinger will be joined by  director Jamie Lloyd and her London co-stars Tom Francis, Grace Hodgett-Young and David Thaxton at Broadway’s St. James Theatre with preview performances beginning Saturday, September 28 ahead of a Sunday, October 20 opening night.

Before being a judge in the wildly-popular TV reality shows, The Masked Singer and The X Factor, Scherzinger was a member of the girl group, the Pussycat Dolls.

Based on the acclaimed Billy Wilder film, Andrew Lloyd Webber's lush and brooding Tony Award ® – winning Best Musical is a noir-esque journey to Hollywood's glamorous past.

'Hadestown' with Jon Jon Briones and Isa Briones

The good news: Jon Jon Briones and his daughter, Isa Briones, star in the award-winning musical Hadestown.

The bad news: The Filipino American father and daughter team will be leaving the Broadway production June 30.

“There’s just this pinch-me moment. I can’t believe I get to do this with a musical theater legend but also that legend is my father and also telling a beautiful, beautiful story,” Isa Briones tells the Associated Press.

        FYI: Read about the Briones father and daughter, check out an earlier post here.

'Yellowface' with Daniel Dae Kim

Daniel Dae Kim will star in the Broadway premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Yellowface this Fall.

The play, which is inspired by real events, follows a playwright protesting the casting of white actors playing Asian roles in Miss Saigon, and then mistakenly casting a white actor as an Asian lead in his own play. Yellow Face, directed by Leigh Silverman, is scheduled to start previews at what will be the newly renamed Todd Haimes Theatre September 13, 2024.

Best known for his TV roles in Lost and Hawaii 5-0, Kims is an outspoken advocate for AANHPI representation in the arts. Its fitting that Kim take part in this farce about racial casting.

Its not the first time Kim has been on Broadway. He made his Broadway debut as the King of Siam in Lincoln Center’s Tony-winning 2017 production of The King and I.

'Hamilton' with  Stephanie Jae Park

Stephanie Jae Park has been slaying the pivotal role of Eliza Hamilton in the current Hamilton Broadway production, a role Korean American has had since 2022. However, she will be leaving the show in July to advance her already promising career as a songwriter, actor, singer and dancer.

Park was born and raised in Guam up until age 11 when the family moved to the mainland. Her mother was an opoera singer and encouraged her three daughters to take  singing and dancing lessons.

If you're lucky, Mark dela Cruz, fresh off his sting on Here Lies Love, is the standby  Alexander Hamilton, the first Filipino American to play that role whenever Trey Curtis, the latest actor to play the title role,, needs a break.

'Aladdin' with Adi Roy and Sonya Balsara

Two Indian American artists took over the principal roles in Aladdin, which has been playing on Broadway for 10 years.

Adi Roy will playplays the title role and Sonya Balsara  is Jasmine in Aladdin, adapted from the animated Disney film and centuries-old folktales including “One Thousand and One Nights.

Roy took over the title role June 2 after playing Aladdin in the touring production this year.

Sonya Balsara  took over the role of Jasmine in 2023. Roy assumed the Aladdin role earlier this year, based on the Disney musical film, has been playing on Broadway for a decade.

Even though Aladdin has many South Asian elements to the story including its locale of the mythical Agrabah, this is the first time two South Asians perform in the principle roles of Aladdin and Jasmine.

"The magnitude of this opportunity and responsibility is not lost on me," says Balsara in a Playbill interview. "It is a privilege to inspire young people, especially young girls who never saw themselves represented in other princesses or roles on Broadway.

"Beyond that, it is my dream that her story teaches all people that they can speak their truth: that you can feel overlooked and then choose to rewrite the story, that your voice can spearhead significant change toward a new world you dream about.

"In order to be a role model for others, I am also learning to take ownership of who I am and my identity being mixed race. I have always had a complicated relationship with my identity in this industry, never quite feeling like I belong anywhere," says Balsara." Each night when I grace the stage, I aim to embrace all that I am—my Parsi, Hindu, and European-American roots—as well as the artist I am always striving to be."

Adi Roy and Sonya  Balsara play the lead roles in 'Aladdin.'

''Old Friends' with Lea Salonga

Perhaps the most anticipated show featuring an Asian American performer won't happen until 2025. The Filipino singer who some say, opened the doors to Asian performers on Broadway, Lea Salonga, will be returning to New York City Old Friends, a show based on the songs of the legendary Stephen Sondheim.

Salonga, who rocketed to fame and earned a Tony for her performance in Miss Saigon at the age of 18, will be joined by another Tony winner, Bernadette Peters, reprising their performances from the concert's London priemiere. Previews will begin March 25, 2025, at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

The show will also get a pre-Broadway run via Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group, with performances set for the Ahmanson Theatre.

Salonga also was the singing voice for Disney's princesses Jasmin in the movies Aladdin and Mulan in the feature of the same name. She has also starred in Broadway productions of Les Misérables, Once on this Island, and Allegiance.

And more ...

While we celebrate the representation these artists bring to Broadway, the fact that we are able to list the AANHPI performers in this short article highlights the problem of the lack of diversity on Broadway as highlighted in the 2021 report by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition.

In the 2018-19 season, the last full season before the pandemic,the AAPAC report found that Asian American actors were cast in just 6.3% of all available roles; Asian American playwrights, composers, librettists and lyricists made up just 4.4% of all writers produced; and Asian American directors helmed only 4.5% of all productions.

The report found that only 20 Asian American perfomers were cast in the  Broadway ensembles, singers and dancers in supporting roles usually in the background and rarely with speaking roles.

The recent productions with all-Asian casts, K-POP, Here Lies Love and Allegiance in 2022 and 2023 gathered together some of the best Asian American performers on Broadway. 

Although the musicals, didn't have longer runs, they provided platforms for the performers to prove they do belong and that there is more than enough talent for professional theater. Already, cast members from thse shows have roles in other productions on Broadway and Off-Broadway.

We currently have Michael Maliakel and Sonya Balsara holding it down in Aladdin, for the ‘long running shows’ as well as Ruthie Ann Miles in Sweeney Todd. Lola Tung coming in to Hadestown as Eurydice on Feb 9 opposite Lilias White as Hermes and Jordan Fisher as Orpheus for a limited run. Chicago recently added Lili Thomas as Mama Morton and Red Concepción as Amos – so even long running shows can be inclusive. And….revivals – with Vishal Vaidya holding it down in Merrily We Roll 

“Triumphs in representation come in waves. While this fall is a low point in visibility for many communities on Broadway, there are few as absent as the Asian-American performing community.” The Ensemblist’s Mo Brady said in a statement. “Right now, there are only 20 Asian-American actors in all of the ensembles of Broadway's 19 currently-running musicals. If every single Asian performing in a Broadway ensemble can fit in one photograph, then we know we have a problem with representation."

In Hamilton, Stephanie Jae Park is Eliza, Marc Delacruz is the standby for several of the lead male roles, which he most recently was lauded in various publications for switching roles mid show. Jen Sese is there as standby for all the Schuyler sisters, and Eddy Lee and Preston Mui, round out the Ensemble.