Golden Child News

Asian American Theatre Revue has learned that Randall Duk Kim and Ming-Na Wen will be joining the cast for David Henry Hwang's newest play, Golden Child, as it wends its way to a late March 1998 Broadway debut.

Already set is an engagement at San Francisco's ACT, starting February 13, 1998. In addition, Hwang and his director, James Lapine, are in negotiations to bring the show to Singapore right before the SF run, marking the first time a show has gone to Asia for a pre-Broadway tryout.

Golden Child is Hwang's semi-autobiographical play set in China of the 1910s. It deals with a wealthy Chinese merchant and his conversion to Christianity and embracing of Western ways, as well as the effects those acts have on his three wives and, ultimately, his grandchildren. The play has already played in Los Angeles and New York, where it won an Obie in 1997, and garnered both very good and mixed reviews.

Randall Duk Kim, new addition to the Golden Child Cast, may very well be called the best Shakespearean actor mainstream audiences have never heard of. He has been performing since 1960 in such theatres as Joseph Papp's Public Theatre in New York City, The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco,and Arizona Repertory Theatre. A short list of his many leading roles would include the title roles in King Lear, Hamlet, Pericles, Oedipus Rex, and Tamburlaine the Great; Prospero in The Tempest, Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Brutus in Julius Caesar, and Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Most recently, he was seen in the Broadway revival of The King and I which featured Lou Diamond Philips. In 1979, Mr. Kim co-founded American Players Theatre (APT) in Spring Green, Wisconsin, with Anne Occhiogrosso and Charles Bright. He currently resides in his native Hawaii, where he pursues his love of education and the theatrewith Honolulu Theatre for Youth.

On the other hand, Ming-Na Wen is well known for role in The Joy Luck Club and as Trudy in the TV series, The Single Guy. As well, she boasts a long string of credits in New York theatre and Hollywood (Street Fighter, ER, etc.). What's not so well known is her extensive producing background, both in New York ( Summer of the Sirens and Flight Attendant Abel) and across the country (Exit the Dragon, now playing at the Northwest Asian American Theatre).[Which, we suppose, makes Ms. Wen what the Revue only wishes we could be...if we had any talent...][Not to mention being younger and prettier...].

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