Great Roles for Asian Men

A rock ’n’ roll musician fleeing political persecution. The CFO of a trendy sports apparel company. A Chinese American basketball player competing in Beijing. An awkward 16-year-old D&D nerd in Long Beach, California. A bunch of “regular guys” playing poker. These are just some of the varied and compelling roles you’ll find in this collection of Concord Theatricals plays and musicals featuring Asian men.

American Hwangap by Lloyd Suh (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 3m)
American Hwangap tells the story of Min Suk Chun, who some 15 years earlier left his family in a West Texas suburb to return to his native Korea. On the occasion of his 60th birthday (hwangap), a milestone signifying the completion of the Eastern Zodiac and a type of rebirth, he returns to his ex-wife and now adult children as they struggle to reconcile their broken past with the mercurial, verbose and often exasperating patriarch now back at the head of the table.

Aubergine by Julia Cho (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 4m)
A man shares a bowl of berries, and a young woman falls in love. A world away, a mother prepares a bowl of soup to keep her son from leaving home. And a son cooks a meal for his dying father to say everything that words can’t. In this poignant and lyrical play, the making of a perfect meal is an expression more precise than language, and the medium through which life gradually reveals itself.

Bruce & Lee by Elissa C. Huang (US)
(Short Play, Drama / 1w, 1m)
Bruce and his daughter Jackie sometimes struggle to connect, but they share a tradition of sending each other a video message every year on their mutual birthday. Reaching out can stir up funny family stories and raw emotional truths. Reaching out can be frustrating. Reaching out can increase your connection, or distance, or both. But they reach out every year. Bruce & Lee is a mosaic of monologues that weaves through time to reveal two complex, singular lives and one deeply resonant relationship between father and daughter.

Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 3m, 2 any gender)
A story filled with horror, humor, pathos and songs by the best unknown rock band in Cambodia. In 1978, Chum fled Cambodia and narrowly escaped the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Thirty years later, he returns in search of his wayward daughter, Neary. As the play jumps back and forth in time, thrilling mystery meets rock concert until both father and daughter are forced to face the music of the past.

Christmas in Hanoi by Edward Nguyen Borey (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 3m)
Winnie Ganley and her family are traveling to Vietnam, her late mother’s birth country, during Christmas. Her Irish-American father is drinking too much, her Vietnamese grandfather is coming to believe his grandchildren are too assimilated and her brother is seeing ghosts. As Winnie tries to uncover the real reason her father and grandfather have decided to make the trip, she – and the rest of her family – try to make peace with the past, with each other and with themselves in this elucidating play.

Cowboy Versus Samurai by Michael Golamco (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 1w, 3m)
Travis Park is a high school English teacher and the only Korean American man living in a dusty cowboy town known as Breakneck, Wyoming. When a gorgeous, whip-smart Asian American woman moves into town, he immediately falls for her; the only problem is that she only dates white men. In this savagely funny and often-moving re-telling of Cyrano De Bergerac, one man must choose allegiance between between the Asian American and the American within himself – between Cowboy and Samurai – in a pursuit of a love that may only be as real as the love letters he writes for someone else.

Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 3m)
Amir Kapoor is a successful Pakistani-American lawyer rapidly moving up the corporate ladder. Emily, his wife, is white. When the couple hosts a dinner party, what starts out as a friendly conversation escalates into something far more damaging. Tackling thorny questions of identity and belonging, Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer-winning work explores image, Islamophobia and the pervasive need to be the “best” version of yourself.

Draw the Circle by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1gnc)
The hilarious and deeply moving story of conservative Muslim mother at her wits’ end, a Muslim father who likes to tell jokes, and a queer American woman trying to make a good impression on her Indian in-laws. In a story about family and love and the things we do to be together, one immigrant family must come to terms with a child who defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter. This unique play compassionately brings to life the often ignored struggle that a family goes through when their child transitions from one gender to another.

Edith Can Shoot Things And Hit Them by A. Rey Pamatmat (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 2m)
Three kids – Kenny, his sister Edith, and their friend Benji – are all but abandoned on a farm in remotest Middle America. With little adult supervision, they feed and care for each other, making up the rules as they go. But when Kenny and Benji’s relationship becomes more than friendship, and Edith shoots something she really shouldn’t shoot, the formerly indifferent outside world comes barging in, whether they want it to or not.

Flower Drum Song Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Book by David Henry Hwang (US/UK)
(Full-Length Musical, Comedy / 3w, 5m)
Wang, the successful owner of a restaurant/club in San Francisco’s Chinatown, struggles to keep the Chinese opera tradition alive, despite his son Tan’s determination to turn the old opera house into a swingin’ Western-style nightclub. When a young woman named Mei-Li arrives from China, Tan questions his infatuation with entertainer Linda Low and begins to develop an appreciation for tradition, custom… and Mei-Li.

FOB by David Henry Hwang (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 2m)
Grace and Dale are cousins, living in the Los Angeles area and attending college. Dale is fully American, second generation. Grace is first generation and holds the customs of China in higher regard. The arrival of Steve, an exchange student and a newcomer from China, fresh off the boat, forces them to confront a number of conflicting feelings about America, China and themselves. Told in a style that moves quickly between myth and reality, with the characters occasionally speaking directly to the audience, FOB is immediate and vivid theatre.

God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 2m)
When Masako is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer, her dispersed family is brought back to their Kentucky hometown to care for her. Forced together in a time of need, five estranged people come face to face with their own mortality.

Golden Child by David Henry Hwang (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w, 2m)
In the winter of 1918, progressive Chinese landowner Eng Tieng-Bin’s interest in Westernization and Christianity sets off a power struggle among his three wives, which will determine the future of his daughter Ahn. Bringing religion, family and the desire to grow spiritually and financially into sharp conflict with each other, Golden Child is testament to playwright David Henry Hwang’s brilliance.

Golden Shield by Anchuli Felicia King (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w, 4m)
A riveting work about loyalties, intrigue and the delicate art of translation. In this tense drama, two Chinese American sisters lead a class action lawsuit to expose an American tech giant’s involvement with the Chinese government’s firewall, Golden Shield. The play is a whirlwind tour of social and political locales ranging from American courtrooms to Chinese boardrooms to Beijing dive bars, and the story’s transnational events are supported by The Translator, who bridges the gap between Mandarin, English and everything in between. 

House Rules by A. Rey Pamatmat (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 4m)
Rod thinks the game is fixed. Momo’s still learning the rules. Twee doesn’t think winning is enough. JJ hates his hand. And why the hell is Henry still playing? Two families (and some guy named Henry) panic with hilarious and heartbreaking results when they realize their parents won’t be around forever. Can anybody prepare for the inevitable moment when they’re the ones left holding all the cards?

How the Light Gets In by E.M. Lewis (US/UK) 
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 2m) 
This richly human play is a heartfelt and poignant look at four grieving individuals who understand that personal connection, though messy, may be their best path to healing. A travel writer who never travels. A Japanese architect who can’t figure out how to build a simple tea house. A gifted tattoo artist who resists the power of his talents. And a homeless girl who lives under a weeping willow tree in the Japanese Garden. These four lonely people, their stories written on paper, earth and skin, find each other when one of them falls apart.

Huck and Holden by Rajiv Joseph (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w, 3m)
Huck & Holden is a romantic comedy that wrestles with cultural stereotypes, racism, The Kama Sutra, The Catcher in the Rye, and how losing our innocence doesn’t always make us wiser. Navin is an Indian college student who’s fresh off the boat and trying to remain focused on his studies while the temptations of America and college life beat down his door. When Navin falls for Michelle, a young African American woman, his perceptions of the world begin to expand— and crumble.

Karaoke Stories by Euijoon Kim (US)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 3m)
A live cinematic opus of loss, sorrow, and unrequited love played out in a rundown L.A. karaoke bar. As Jeff, an under-qualified producer with is own “ideas,” reads from Eric’s screenplay, the characters come to life on the karaoke stage, fulfilling a Tour De Force vision of “meaningful/thought-provoking” sex, violence, and political incorrectness. It’s The Love Boat meets Pulp Fiction meets Porky’s, with an all Asian-American cast and one token white guy.

Kim’s Convenience by Ins Choi (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 3m)
Popularized by the CBC sitcom adaptation, Kim’s Convenience is dramatic comedy about a Korean Canadian family who run a convenience store. A hilarious and heartwarming ode to generations of immigrants who have made Canada the country that it is, the play focuses on the relationship between a traditional father and a son who has left home. 

King of The Yees by Lauren Yee (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 3m)
For nearly 20 years, playwright Lauren Yee’s father, Larry, has been a driving force in the Yee Family Association, a seemingly obsolescent Chinese American men’s club formed 150 years ago in the wake of the Gold Rush and the building of the transcontinental railroad. But when her father goes missing, Lauren must plunge into the rabbit hole of San Francisco Chinatown and confront a world both foreign and familiar. At once bitingly hilarious and heartbreakingly honest, King of the Yees is an epic joyride across cultural, national and familial borders that explores what it means to truly be a Yee.

Letters of Suresh by Rajiv Joseph (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 2m)
Intimate mysteries unfold through a series of letters between strangers, friends, daughters and lovers – many with little else in common but a hunger for human connection. Sending their hopes and dreams across oceans and years, they seek peace in one another, while some dream of a city once consumed by the scourge of war. From Father Hashimoto to teenage Suresh Thakur, there are opportunities for Asian men to bring connection to the stage in this intimate drama.

M. Butterfly, 2017 Broadway Revival Version by David Henry Hwang (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 7m)
The strange tale of a French diplomat who carried on a 20-year relationship with a Chinese opera star, unaware (he contended) that his “perfect woman” was really a man, this Tony Award-winning play brilliantly explores the West’s romantic misperception of Eastern culture. The Original Version is also available (US).

On That Day in Amsterdam by Clarence Key Coo (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 4m)
Kevin is a first-generation Filipino-American college student who, on his last night in Amsterdam, has a one-night stand with Sammy, a guy he meets in a bar. But when his flight gets delayed, Kevin finds himself spending the day with Sammy and what began as a one-night stand becomes a deeper connection. Years later, Kevin is still trying to capture that day in writing. Weaving in historical figures who also were touched by art and the uncertainty of life, this play explores love, art, loss and what it means to live.

Poor Yella Rednecks by Qui Nguyen (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 4m)
In this funny, sexy and brash sequel to Vietgone, a young Vietnamese family attempts to put down roots in Arkansas, a place as different from home as it gets. Tong and Quang balance big hopes and low-wage jobs, as old flings threaten to pull them apart. It all makes for a bumpy road to the American dream. From the world of Nguyen’s Vietgone, with its comic book and action movie influences, comes a play that melds a deeply personal story with the playwright’s trademark, killer humor. 

Queen by Madhuri Shekar (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 2m)
Sanam Shah, a mathematician, and Ariel Spiegel, a biologist, are Ph.D. candidates and best friends working together to discover the cause of colony collapse disorder – the urgent, ecological crisis where bees are disappearing around the world in alarming numbers. Just as they are about to publish a career-defining new paper on the subject, calling for a ban on commercial pesticides, Sanam realizes that the numbers don’t add up to support their conclusion. Should she look the other way for the sake of environmental action, or should she stand by her scientific principles, even if it means ceding ground to an ecological disaster, jeopardizing her career and losing her best friend?

Regretfully, So the Birds Are by Julia Izumi (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dark Comedy / 4w, 2m)
Arson. Affairs. Incest. Murder… are only the beginning of problems for the Whistler siblings. Mora’s gotta find her birth mother, Neel’s gotta find himself, and Illy’s gotta keep her piece of the sky… but the birds have other plans. Equal parts chaos and absurdity, Julia Izumi’s farcical tragedy about three siblings questions the destructive nature of the American need for identity, while trying to wade through the murky waters of Asian-American-ness and gleefully flips the human quest for self-discovery on its head.

Song of Extinction by E. M. Lewis (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 5m)
Max, a musically gifted high school student, is falling off the edge of the world – and his biology teacher is the only one who’s noticed. A play about the science of life and loss, the relationships between fathers and sons, Cambodian fields, Bolivian rainforests and redemption.

The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 1m)
Afong Moy is 14 years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity.

The Great Leap by Lauren Yee (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 3m)
When an American college basketball team travels to Beijing for a “friendship” game in the post-Cultural Revolution 1980s, both countries try to tease out the politics behind this newly popular sport. Cultures clash as the Chinese coach tries to pick up moves from the Americans and Chinese American player Manford spies on his opponents. Inspired by events in her own father’s life, Yee “applies a devilishly keen satiric eye to… her generation (and its parents).”

The Oldest Boy: A Play in Three Ceremonies by Sarah Ruhl (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 4m)
In this moving exploration of parenthood, an American mother and a Tibetan father have a three-year-old son believed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist lama. When a Tibetan lama and a monk come to their home unexpectedly, asking to take their child away for a life of spiritual training in India, the parents must make a life-altering choice that will test their strength, their marriage, and their hearts.

The World of Extreme Happiness by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 3w, 4m)
Unwanted from the moment she’s born, Sunny is determined to escape her life in rural China and forge a new identity in the city. As naïve as she is ambitious, Sunny views her new job in a grueling factory as a stepping stone to untold opportunities. When fate casts her as a company spokeswoman at a sham PR event, Sunny’s bright outlook starts to unravel in a series of harrowing and darkly comic events.

Tibet Through the Red Box by David Henry Hwang (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 1w, 3m)
Peter’s father, Vladimir, has been sent to Tibet to make a documentary film just as the nation is being invaded by the Chinese. Separated from his party, Vladimir must trek alone to the capital of Lhasa while his angry and injured son struggles to bring his father to life through his fantastical letters. Will father and son ever be reunited? A fictional and mythical retelling of Peter Sis’ boyhood experience in 1950s Prague, based on his acclaimed book.

Today Is My Birthday by Susan Soon He Stanton (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 3w, 3m)
Emily, a would-be writer, retreats home to O’ahu after Manhattan finally gets the best of her. Trading one island for another doesn’t help, though, and when she stumbles into a gig as an actor on a shock-jock radio dating show, she finds herself strangely determined to turn fantasy into reality. Told through a playful mixture of phone calls, voicemails, and live radio spots, this charming play is a dramedy about loneliness in the age of connection.

Vietgone by Qui Nguyen (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w, 3m)
An all-American love story about two very new Americans. It’s 1975. Saigon has fallen. He lost his wife. She lost her fiancé. But now, in a new land, they just might find each other. Using the uniquely infectious style The New York Times calls “culturally savvy comedy” – and skipping back and forth from the dramatic evacuation of Saigon to the here and now – playwright Qui Nguyen gets up close and personal to tell the story that led to the creation of… Qui Nguyen.

Wild Goose Dreams by Hansol Jung (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 4w, 4m)
Nanhee, the daughter of a North Korean miner, has defected to South Korea, leaving her family behind. Minsung is a South Korean “goose father” who works in South Korea to support his wife and children in the United States. Nanhee and Minsung find each other on the internet. A story about modern aspirations and their betrayals, Wild Goose Dreams explores the miracle of quiet intimacy among the noise of the contemporary world.

Wives by Jaclyn Backhaus (US)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 3w, 1m)
In this kaleidoscopic, time-hopping, comic ensemble piece, Jaclyn Backhaus pushes past patriarchal cliché to reach an ecstatic breakthrough, untethering stories and history – and language itself – from the visions made by men. A play about women taking control of their narratives with the help of each other, their feelings and a giant fish.

Year Zero by Michael Golamco (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 1w, 3m)
Vuthy Vichea is 16 years old, Cambodian American. He loves hip hop and Dungeons and Dragons. He has thick-ass glasses. He is a weird kid in a place where weirdness can be fatal: Long Beach, California. Since his best friend moved and his mother died, the only person he can talk to is a human skull he keeps hidden in a cookie jar. Year Zero is a comedic drama about young Cambodian Americans — about reincarnation, reinvention and, ultimately, redemption.

Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang (US)
(Full-Length Play, Drama / 2w, 5m)
The lines between truth and fiction blur with hilarious and moving results in David Henry Hwang’s unreliable memoir. Asian American playwright David Henry Hwang (DHH), fresh off his Tony Award win for M. Butterfly, leads a protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Eurasian pimp in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon, condemning the practice as “yellow face.” His position soon comes back to haunt him when he mistakes a Caucasian actor, Marcus G. Dahlman, for mixed-race and casts him in the lead Asian role of his own Broadway-bound comedy, Face Value. When DHH discovers the truth of Marcus’ ethnicity, he tries to conceal his blunder to protect his reputation as an Asian-American role model. Confronting the shifting boundaries of race, and the ways in which we interpret ourselves, David Henry Hwang (and DHH) reveal that our faces are always more complex than they appear.

Yoga Play by Dipika Guha (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Comedy / 2w, 3m)
Joan has been hired to stabilize Jojomon, a yoga apparel giant, after its CEO is brought down by a fat-shaming scandal. But just as she finds her stride, more trouble surfaces and sales plummet. Joan comes up with a plan so risky that it could make or break the company and her career—and what it requires from her CFO, Raj, is far beyond the call of duty. This sharp comedy asks what it takes to find your own authenticity in a world determined to sell enlightenment.

Young Americans by Lauren Yee (US/UK)
(Full-Length Play, Dramatic Comedy / 2w, 1m)
Joe and Jenny, a young immigrant couple, share a drive across America to their new home, forging a relationship through national sites, motels and unexpectedly eventful IHOP stops. Twenty years later, Joe takes the same drive with their 19-year-old daughter, Lucy, but Jenny isn’t there. A heartfelt and engaging dramedy about twin road trips two decades apart that creates a nuanced picture of two generations of an immigrant family.

Find more shows featuring great roles for Asian actors on the Concord Theatricals website. In the US/North America, click here. In the UK/Europe, click here.