Rehearsals are underway for the musical version of Ang Lee's Academy Award-nominated 1993 film The Wedding Banquet in Taiwan.
Gordon Greenberg, represented on Broadway this season with the new Huey Lewis musical The Heart of Rock and Roll, is directing the production, which will play the Taipei Performing Arts Center May 24–June 2.
Aladdin star Telly Leung—who is featured in the latest season of the streaming series Warrior and whose Broadway credits also include Rent, In Transit, Pacific Overtures, Allegiance, Godspell, and Flower Drum Song—stars as Wai-Tung opposite Matt Shingledecker (West Side Story, Wicked, Spring Awakening) as Simon and Janice Yan plus veteran Taiwanese actors Pei-An Lo
and Keli Miao.
Take a look at the production in the photo gallery below.
Matt Shingledecker and Telly Leung The Wedding Banquet
Telly Leung and cast of The Wedding Banquet
Cast of The Wedding Banquet
Telly Leung and cast of The Wedding Banquet
Cast of The Wedding Banquet
Matt Shingledecker in The Wedding Banquet
Matt Shingledecker in The Wedding Banquet
Telly Leung and Matt Shingledecker in The Wedding Banquet
Cast of The Wedding Banquet
Matt Shingledecker in The Wedding Banquet
Telly Leung in The Wedding Banquet
READ: After 2 Decades in Showbiz, Telly Leung Says Rejection Still Stings, But Community Is Key
The musical features a concept and book by Welly Yang, a book and lyrics by Matt Eddy, music by Woody Pak with additional contributions by Brian Yorkey. Eamon Foley choreographs with vocal design by AnnMarie Milazzo. Casting is by JZ Casting's Geoff Josselson.
Director Greenberg recently told Playbill, “I remember seeing the Ang Lee film when it first came out and being blown away by the way it talked about gay marriage—with honesty, humor, and heart. That wasn’t something we even thought about in the U.S. This adaptation brings the story into the present and is centered on creating new kinds of family, with the main characters ending up in one household, raising a child. It’s smart, sexy, and so much fun. And the score is phenomenally exciting.”
The creative team also includes set designer Hui Chen, lighting
designer I-Hua Kao, projection designer Hsuan-Kuang Hsieh, costume
designer Keith Lin, sound designer Hsing-Kuo Chung, music director
Meng-Mei Kuo, assistant director Leo Chang, assistant choreographer Jia
Jia Chang, production stage manager Calvin Wang, deputy stage manager
Daphne Lin, and production manager Vivian Chan.
Written and directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Lee, the film The Wedding Banquet concerns
gay Taiwanese-American Wai-Tung—whose parents are pressuring him to
marry a woman—and his boyfriend Simon. At Simon's suggestion, Wai-Tung
arranges a marriage of convenience with a young woman named Wei-Wei who
needs a green card. Wai-Tung's parents arrive for the wedding and a mix
of hysterical and touching complications ensue. The motion picture was
nominated for a 1994 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Wedding Banquet musical was originally conceived and
developed for the stage by Yang in 2003 and is being produced in Taiwan
by HUA Musical International Inc. and Taiwan Creative Content Agency.
Click here for ticket information.
