You are currently browsing all entries tagged with 'M. Butterfly'

15 Things Non-Asian Women Should Never Say to an Asian Guy while Having Sex with Him

  • December 18, 2011 11:03 pm

Everyone with half a brain knows that Asian guys are the most virile, masculine and sexually-desirable men on the planet. Yet, for some reason, there still exists this stereotype of Asian males as wimpy, emasculated and asexual. And worse still, there are Asian guys who’ve bought into this stereotype and feel insecure when it comes to the opposite sex, especially non-Asian women.

So with that in mind, if you’re a non-Asian chick and you hook up with a brotha at that holiday party or in the fitting room of your local Forever 21, here are 15 things you probably shouldn’t say while the two of you are gettin’ it on:

1) Kim Jong-Il used to make that same squinty-eyed face when I’d go down on him too. *Sigh* I miss him.

2) Just a heads up—I’m really mad at my racist father and to get back at him I told him we’re having sex so he should be bursting into the room any second now with a shotgun.

3) Why yes, that is a “Property of the Aryan Nation” tattoo on my vagina.

4) If I swallow, will you do my trigonometry homework for me?

5) My bad! I thought being violated by octopus tentacles during sex was normal in your culture.  Read more...

The ‘Chinglish’ Journal: Week 4 (June 13, 2011)

  • June 13, 2011 3:51 pm

DHH

Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. BUTTERFLY) is in rehearsals for his latest play CHINGLISH in Chicago where it will have its world premiere at the historic Goodman Theater from June 18-July 24. DHH has graciously agreed to blog regularly (tentatively every Monday) throughout the rehearsal process to give our readers a glimpse into how a major theatrical production comes to life.

We are now two weeks away from Opening Night on June 27. You try to write the best play you can, give it a home at one of the country’s leading theatres, work with the most skilled director, hire talented and experienced actors and designers – but you never really know what’s going to happen.

I’m best-known for a play called M. BUTTERFLY, which won the Tony Award back in 1988 and was a hit around the world. But when that show first premiered, in Washington D.C., the critics were far from impressed. The WASHINGTON POST wrote, “You will not have an easy time wending your way through M. BUTTERFLY … Hwang’s net is riddled with holes and the elusive prey flutters forever out of reach.” VARIETY declared, “This is not Broadway material.” One of our producers, Stuart Ostrow, continued to believe in the show and literally mortgaged his house to get us to New York, where, fortunately, the story had a happy ending. But it could’ve easily gone the other way.  Read more...

The ‘Chinglish’ Journal: Week 1 (May 23, 2011)

  • May 23, 2011 6:35 pm

DHH

Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. BUTTERFLY) has just started rehearsals for his latest play CHINGLISH in Chicago where it will have its world premiere at the historic Goodman Theater from June 18-July 24. DHH has graciously agreed to blog regularly throughout the rehearsal process to give our readers a glimpse into how a major theatrical production comes to life. And so it begins…

It’s what we playwrights work and live for. It can lead to great success, or humiliating failure. And the twists and turns it will take, not to mention its final outcome, are completely unpredictable.

I’m talking about the world premiere of a new show. This week, my latest play, CHINGLISH, began rehearsals for its opening on June 27 at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. I’ll try to give YOMYOMF readers a glimpse into this process, by posting regular updates through opening night. I’m shooting for one blog a week (on Mondays), but we’ll see. Like I said, it’s all impossible to predict.

A little background on the play itself. CHINGLISH is set in the present, and concerns a non-Chinese American businessman who travels to the Chinese provincial capital of Guiyang, to try and make a deal. I started thinking about business in contemporary China because I’ve been traveling there fairly regularly lately – about once or twice a year over the past five or six years. Broadway-style theatre has become quite popular in China, particularly in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese government has made it something of a national priority to create a homegrown musical which will end up on Broadway. Which is both bizarre and sort of cool. I happen to be the only even nominally-Chinese person who’s ever written a Broadway show, so I started getting a lot of invitations to go over and talk about potential projects. Unsurprisingly, none of the big schemes proposed has ever materialized. But it’s been a great opportunity for me to learn about China today, arguably the most exciting place in the world. (And I would argue that Shanghai today is the world’s best party city.)  Read more...

Why I Hate (writing for) the Movies

  • October 25, 2010 8:50 pm

DHH

David Henry Hwang is a playwright who has been producing plays, musicals and operas for three decades. He won the Tony Award for his play M. BUTTERFLY and also writes for movies and television. He spent the past weekend in San Diego to help YOMYOMF celebrate the end of INTERPRETATIONS at the San Diego Asian Film Festival and to attend the production of his play YELLOW FACE at the Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company which runs until this weekend. 

Having just served as a juror for INTERPRETATIONS and returned from the impressive San Diego Asian Film Festival, I find myself inspired by the talent, dedication, and passion that went into each and every film. This causes me to reflect on my own experiences as a screenwriter working on movies, most of which did not get made, as well as the handful that did.

I should explain that I come to the filmmaking world as something of an outsider. I’m not referring so much to my being Asian, as that I’m basically a theatre guy, having written plays, Broadway musicals, and libretti for operas. So, as a writer, I am spoiled. In every form involving scripts, someone holds the primary creative vision, which the other collaborating artists support. In opera, for instance, that person is the composer. When it comes to plays, it’s the playwright.  Read more...

Working with Prince

  • June 28, 2010 12:00 am

DHH

David Henry Hwang is a playwright who has been producing plays, musicals and operas for three decades. He won the Tony Award for his play M. BUTTERFLY and also writes for movies and television. After his previous blogs where he unleashed his Asian Shame and discussed his worst career moves (see here, here and here), he turns to write about something more…funky.

Growing up, I listened to lots of music, but the two artists who meant most to me were David Bowie and Prince. I discovered Prince through his 1980 album DIRTY MIND. See, back in 1980, there was black music, and there was white music. Period. I listened mostly to black artists cuz I imagined most of the white guys would just as soon beat me up as pick up their guitars. Unless they were British, in which case they might not beat me up cuz, I dunno, they had cool accents.

But Prince. DIRTY MIND. What WAS this? Kinda R&B, kinda New Wave. Kinda disco, kinda … punk? How was this guy managing to pull it off? The sound wasn’t black, wasn’t white, it was BOTH. Or neither. Whatever. It was totally new. And brilliant. So danceable. And … really nasty. I loved, loved, loved it.

From then on, I bought every Prince album the day of its release, scoured record stores for unreleased and bootleg tracks, followed each concert tour. I saw 1984’s PURPLE RAIN show in Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis — on Christmas Eve.

So imagine my groupie heart in 1989, when I opened PEOPLE Magazine to find a picture of Prince, coming out of M. BUTTERFLY, my Broadway show! Prince goes to Broadway? Who knew? He saw my play! Did he like it? How come no one told me? I could’ve been there! I could had like a … casual conversation with him. “Hey, Prince, how ya doin’?” Do people actually call him “Prince?”

Four years later, in 1993, I began hearing through my agents that Prince was interested in meeting with me. To talk about an idea for a stage musical.  Read more...

My Worst Career Mistakes: Part Three (My Lunch With Neil)

  • April 22, 2010 12:00 am

DHH

David Henry Hwang is a playwright who has been producing plays, musicals and operas for three decades. He won the Tony Award for his play M. BUTTERFLY and also writes for movies and television. This is the third blog where David opens up about his worst career moves and unleashes his Asian Shame. Read parts 1 and 2 here and here.

Sometimes, you feel like you must have made a terrible mistake, without knowing what you should have done differently. Such was the case regarding an afternoon I spent with the great Irish film director Neil Jordan.

First, some back story: I remain to this day best-known as the author of a 1988 play called M. BUTTERFLY, which was loosely based on the true story of a French diplomat who had a twenty year affair with a Chinese actress, only to discover that his lover was a) a spy and b) a man in drag. More than two decades on, it’s easy to imagine that M. BUTTERFLY had always been destined to be a hit. Believe me, it hadn’t.  Read more...

Five Movies Asian Chicks Should Not Take White Guys To See

  • March 11, 2010 3:16 pm

I recently blogged about the films my Asian American brothas should never watch with a white woman they want to mack. Well, I’m all about the equal opportunity and I know there are some Asian American sistas reading this who also have a craving for the white meat. So if that’s you, here are five flicks you should never watch with your white dude if you want to keep him from bolting out your door.

RINGU (1998)

The one that started it all–this is the original Japanese horror film about a girl who seeks vengeance from beyond the grave via a cursed videotape. This is a chick who gets conked in the head and thrown down a deep well–after which the well is tightly sealed. Yet, she still manages to somehow climb out of your TV to fuck you up good. There are people who already think Asian chicks especially Koreans are crazy (not me of course), so do you really want your white man to worry that you’re going to track him down and fuck him up good if he does anything to slight or upset you? Do you want him to think this will happen to him (and yes, that is Hiroyuki Sanada from Lost):  Read more...