David Henry Hwang’s stage works include the plays M. Butterfly, Yellow Face (2024 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival broadcast on PBS Great Performances), Chinglish, The Dance and the Railroad, and FOB, as well as the musicals Soft Power, Flower Drum Song and Disney’s international hits Aida and Tarzan. Called America’s most-produced living opera librettist by Opera News, he has written thirteen libretti, including five with Philip Glass, Dream of the Red Chamber with music by Bright Sheng (San Francisco Opera 2016), and Ainadamar with music by Osvaldo Golijov (Metropolitan Opera premiere 2024). The Monkey King is his fourth opera with Huang Ruo. Hwang was a Writer/Consulting Producer for the Golden Globe-winning television series The Affair and co-wrote the Gold Record “Solo” with the late pop legend Prince. He is a Tony Award winner and four-time nominee, a Grammy Award winner and two-time nominee, a three-time OBIE Award winner, and a three-time Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Hwang was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2018 and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild in 2025.
Dr. Yining Lin is a freelance dramaturge and theatre education administrator based in Northeast Ohio. Most recently, Dr. Lin worked with Cleveland Play House as their Manager of Partnerships where she worked with organizations and schools to bring Out of School and theatre programming to the students in Cleveland, Buffalo, and Las Vegas. She currently works freelance with Canton Ballet to enhance their outreach programming. As a dramaturge, Yining specializes in AAPI and Social Justice Theatre and has worked in San Francisco, Honolulu, Florida, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.
She holds a BA in theatre and classical studies from the College of Wooster, a masters of Drama from San Francisco State University, and a PhD from University of Hawai’i at Manoa where she specialized in Asian/western comparative theatre. Her dissertation focused on the intercultural nature of jingju (Beijing Opera) adaptations from the 21st century. She is a member of the Association of Asian Performance and has been published in the Journal of Dance Education and the Asian Theatre Journal. Her current research is focused on developing anti-racist methodologies of dramaturgical research in both Western and Asian theatre as well as the presentation of Chinese ethnic minorities in jingju performance.
