Columbia University has announced that Tony award winning playwright David Henry Hwang has joined its faculty of the Arts.
“I’m thrilled for this opportunity to serve the MFA playwriting students at Columbia, helping them develop their own unique and idiosyncratic voices, and building a practical foundation for their future lives in the theatre,” said Hwang.
The announcement came on the same day the University hired Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage.
David Henry Hwang and Lynn Nottage are among the most influential and accomplished American dramatists of the past several decades,” said Christian Parker, Chair of the Master of Fine Arts Theatre Program at Columbia University School of the Arts. “Both have contributed immeasurably to making the stories of underrepresented characters visible in a historically homogeneous field. Each of them brings a passion for the possibilities for social dialogue that can stem from great theatrical storytelling, and a great sense of generosity and rigor about training a new generation of artists.”
Hwang’s works include M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Golden Child, Yellow Face, The Dance & the Railroad and FOB, as well as the Broadway musicals Aida (co-author), Flower Drum Song (2002 revival) and Disney’s Tarzan.