Welly Yang
Encyclopedia
Wellington Yang is an Taiwanese American actor, playwright, and singer.
in 1969. His mother returned to Taipei
in 1991 to direct foreign affairs for the Democratic Progressive Party. Yang grew up in Great Neck, New York
and graduated from the Lawrenceville School
in New Jersey in 1990. There, he sang in the glee club
and was concertmaster of the orchestra. He has played the violin since age 4. At Lawrenceville, Yang played Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance
in 1990, his first show. He then attended Columbia University
, graduating in 1994. At Columbia, he played Leonard Meryll in Gilbert and Sullivan
opera, The Yeomen of the Guard
and then performed in The Mikado
, both with the Barnard Gilbert and Sullivan Society. He sang for two years with the Kingsmen, Columbia's most prestigious acappella group.
. Yang graduated with honors in political science/international relations from Columbia University.
, where he went on to play the lead role of Thuy. He left the Miss Saigon company in 1995 to tour Asia in the title role of Aladdin inCole Porter's Aladdin
. That same year, Yang was cast by the American opera director Peter Sellars
' to play one of the leading roles in John Adams (composer) world premiere of I Was Looking At the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky. The opera's world tour included stops at Lincoln Center, Cal Arts in Berkeley, the Edinburgh International Festival, Hamburg's Thalia Theater, the Helsinki Festival, and the Paris Festival. These performances were called "dynamic" by Time Magazine, "passionate" by The New York Times, and "one of the most remarkable moments in recent operatic times" by the Scotland Times. Yang returned to the New York stage in 1998 as Whizzer in NAATCO's non-traditional casting of William Finn's Falsettoland. The production was lauded for its universal appeal and The New York Times added that "it's Mr. Yang as the cocky, athletic Whizzer who delivers the most smashing performance. He's persuasive from start to finish as the boy toy who becomes a man in the arms of Marvin and the hospital bed he's confined to after developing AIDS. His angry anthem You Gotta Die Sometime is equal parts fire and frustration and further confirmation that Mr. Finn's ethnically specific work can in fact be a moving, multicultural experience."
Yang has also appeared in numerous television shows such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
, As the World Turns
, National Geographic Explorer
and Ghostwriter
. In 2001, Yang also co-hosted the talk show Studio Y on MSG Metro Channels
, where he interviewed celebrities that included Tina Fey, Ed McMahon, Leslie Bibb, and many others.
In 2005, Yang premiered the musical concert Finding Home, a show that paralleled the story of his parents to that of him and his then girlfriend Dina Morishita. The show premiered at UCLA’s Royce Hall and was presented by TUF. It was at the end of that sold-out concert that Yang surprised Morishita by proposing to her in front of the sold out audience. Finding Home later went on to play at Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and Vancouver’s Explorasian Festival in 2006.
and Woody Pak to write and develop the musicals Making Tracks
and The Wedding Banquet (a musical adaptation of Ang Lee's Academy Award winning film). Making Tracks first premiered in 1999 at the Taipei Theater in New York then went on to further development at Taiwan's National Theater in 2001, Seattle's Village Theater, in 2002, and San Jose Repertory Theater in 2004. The Wedding Banquet received its world premiere with productions in Singapore, Taiwan, and Seattle in 2003. In this production of The Wedding Banquet, Yang and his team chose Dina Morishita (who had formerly played Eponine in Les Misérables
and Kim in Miss Saigon
) to play opposite Yang as Wei Wei.
In his work with Second Generation, Yang founded the "Concert of Excellence" to celebrate the achievements of Asian Americans in entertainment. http://www.2g.org/home/coe/ Now presented as the Asian Excellence Awards, the awards show is the only nationally televised event celebrating significant Asian and Asian American achievements in entertainment, the arts and other disciplines that have had a profound impact on American culture. http://www.azntv.com/axawards/about/
He married Dina Morishita, a stage actress, in July 2005.
Biography
Yang was born in New York City. His parents emigrated from TaiwanTaiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
in 1969. His mother returned to Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
in 1991 to direct foreign affairs for the Democratic Progressive Party. Yang grew up in Great Neck, New York
Great Neck, New York
The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...
and graduated from the Lawrenceville School
Lawrenceville School
The Lawrenceville School is a coeducational, independent preparatory boarding school for grades 9–12 located on in the historic community of Lawrenceville, in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, U.S., five miles southwest of Princeton....
in New Jersey in 1990. There, he sang in the glee club
Glee club
A glee club is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. In the late 19th Century it was very popular in most schools and was made a tradition...
and was concertmaster of the orchestra. He has played the violin since age 4. At Lawrenceville, Yang played Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
in 1990, his first show. He then attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, graduating in 1994. At Columbia, he played Leonard Meryll in Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
opera, The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
and then performed in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
, both with the Barnard Gilbert and Sullivan Society. He sang for two years with the Kingsmen, Columbia's most prestigious acappella group.
. Yang graduated with honors in political science/international relations from Columbia University.
Actor, singer
In 1993, while a senior at Columbia, Yang was picked to star in the original Broadway production of Miss SaigonMiss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover...
, where he went on to play the lead role of Thuy. He left the Miss Saigon company in 1995 to tour Asia in the title role of Aladdin inCole Porter's Aladdin
Aladdin
Aladdin is a Middle Eastern folk tale. It is one of the tales in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights , and one of the most famous, although it was actually added to the collection by Antoine Galland ....
. That same year, Yang was cast by the American opera director Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...
' to play one of the leading roles in John Adams (composer) world premiere of I Was Looking At the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky. The opera's world tour included stops at Lincoln Center, Cal Arts in Berkeley, the Edinburgh International Festival, Hamburg's Thalia Theater, the Helsinki Festival, and the Paris Festival. These performances were called "dynamic" by Time Magazine, "passionate" by The New York Times, and "one of the most remarkable moments in recent operatic times" by the Scotland Times. Yang returned to the New York stage in 1998 as Whizzer in NAATCO's non-traditional casting of William Finn's Falsettoland. The production was lauded for its universal appeal and The New York Times added that "it's Mr. Yang as the cocky, athletic Whizzer who delivers the most smashing performance. He's persuasive from start to finish as the boy toy who becomes a man in the arms of Marvin and the hospital bed he's confined to after developing AIDS. His angry anthem You Gotta Die Sometime is equal parts fire and frustration and further confirmation that Mr. Finn's ethnically specific work can in fact be a moving, multicultural experience."
Yang has also appeared in numerous television shows such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
, As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
, National Geographic Explorer
National Geographic Explorer
National Geographic Explorer is an American documentary television series that originally premiered on Nickelodeon on April 7, 1985, after having been produced as a less costly and intensive alternative to PBS's National Geographic Specials by Pittsburgh station WQED...
and Ghostwriter
Ghostwriter (TV series)
Ghostwriter is an American television program created by Liz Nelson and produced by the Children's Television Workshop and BBC One. It began airing on PBS on October 4, 1992, and the final episode aired on February 13, 1995...
. In 2001, Yang also co-hosted the talk show Studio Y on MSG Metro Channels
MSG Metro Channels
MSG Metro Channels were a series of local-minded New York City cable networks which launched in 1998 and folded in late 2005. Owned by Rainbow Media, the Metro networks were founded as a spinoff of the MSG Sports networks. The network was originally split into three separate channels, MSG Metro...
, where he interviewed celebrities that included Tina Fey, Ed McMahon, Leslie Bibb, and many others.
In 2005, Yang premiered the musical concert Finding Home, a show that paralleled the story of his parents to that of him and his then girlfriend Dina Morishita. The show premiered at UCLA’s Royce Hall and was presented by TUF. It was at the end of that sold-out concert that Yang surprised Morishita by proposing to her in front of the sold out audience. Finding Home later went on to play at Taiwan’s National Concert Hall and Vancouver’s Explorasian Festival in 2006.
Producer, writer
In 1997, Yang founded Second Generation, a New York based theater company dedicated to bringing Asian American stories to the world's stage. Under his artistic leadership, the company cultivated the works of many emerging playwrights, many of whom went on to receive productions throughout the country. The company also commissioned Yang along with co-writers Brian YorkeyBrian Yorkey
Brian Yorkey is an American playwright, lyricist, and theatre director. He shared the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Original Score with composer Tom Kitt, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Next to Normal.A native of Issaquah,...
and Woody Pak to write and develop the musicals Making Tracks
Making tracks
Making Tracks is an Asian American musical theater production by Second Generation, with music by Woody Pak, lyrics by Brian Yorkey, and concept and book by Welly Yang.Making Tracks tells the story of the rich and diverse history of Asians in America...
and The Wedding Banquet (a musical adaptation of Ang Lee's Academy Award winning film). Making Tracks first premiered in 1999 at the Taipei Theater in New York then went on to further development at Taiwan's National Theater in 2001, Seattle's Village Theater, in 2002, and San Jose Repertory Theater in 2004. The Wedding Banquet received its world premiere with productions in Singapore, Taiwan, and Seattle in 2003. In this production of The Wedding Banquet, Yang and his team chose Dina Morishita (who had formerly played Eponine in Les Misérables
Les Misérables (musical)
Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....
and Kim in Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover...
) to play opposite Yang as Wei Wei.
In his work with Second Generation, Yang founded the "Concert of Excellence" to celebrate the achievements of Asian Americans in entertainment. http://www.2g.org/home/coe/ Now presented as the Asian Excellence Awards, the awards show is the only nationally televised event celebrating significant Asian and Asian American achievements in entertainment, the arts and other disciplines that have had a profound impact on American culture. http://www.azntv.com/axawards/about/
He married Dina Morishita, a stage actress, in July 2005.
Plays and musicals
- Miss Saigon
- Cole Porter's Aladdin
- I Was Looking At the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky
- Making TracksMaking tracksMaking Tracks is an Asian American musical theater production by Second Generation, with music by Woody Pak, lyrics by Brian Yorkey, and concept and book by Welly Yang.Making Tracks tells the story of the rich and diverse history of Asians in America...
- The Wedding BanquetThe Wedding BanquetThe Wedding Banquet is a 1993 film about a gay Taiwanese immigrant man who marries a mainland Chinese woman to placate his parents and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet....
- Finding Home
Filmography
- Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
- Ghostwriter
- The Cut Runs Deep
- Studio Y
- Popcorn Shrimp
- Asian Excellence Awards