Photo: glenda liza reginaldo / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
David Henry Hwang is, to me, one of the boldest voices in American theater. A Chinese American from Los Angeles, Stanford-educated, he used M. Butterfly to dismantle Western fantasies about the East, and that intellectual nerve is what I admire most. Three Obie Awards, a Tony, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a professorship at Columbia all attest to his stature, yet the prizes are not the point. What stays with me is his willingness to wrestle, in public, with identity, perception, and the politics of representation rather than play it safe. He writes with a strong spine, and I have enormous respect for storytellers who do.
Overview
David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays FOB, Golden Child, and Yellow Face. He has one Tony Award (M. Butterfly) and three other nominations (Golden Child, Flower Drum Song, and Yellow Face). Three of his works (M.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- David Henry Hwang
- Name (Japanese)
- デビッド・ヘンリー・ファン
- Reading
- でびっど・へんりー・ふぁん
- Born
- August 11, 1957 (age 68)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Leo / Rooster
- Origin
- Los Angeles, California, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- dramaturge / screenwriter / actor / writer / librettist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- San Gabriel High School
- University
- Stanford University
Awards & achievements
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- star on Playwrights' Sidewalk
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | FOB | — | |
| Notable work | M. Butterfly | — |
6. Links
Screenwriter — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.