'THE WORLD'S FARTHEST OUT-OF-TOWN TRYOUT'

'The Wedding Banquet' brings Broadway talent to Taipei to level up the Taiwanese theater industry—and develop a new musical with international potential

The Wedding Banquet at the Taipei Performing Arts Center. Photo provided by HUA Musical Inc. and photographer Kay

Later this week a large-scale new musical opens with a Broadway star in the leading role. Its director comes to the project fresh off another show he just opened on Broadway, and its producer is a former Broadway performer himself. But it’s all happening about as far away from Broadway as you can get—7,800 miles away in Taipei, Taiwan.

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There on the other side of the world, The Wedding Banquet bows with a clear eye on where the title might travel next. But at the same time, it’s also part of an effort to fortify the local musical theater industry—and a broader initiative to lift Taiwan’s status as a world player.

“We’re trying to build a community connecting Taiwan, culturally and economically, with the world,” says Welly Yang, the show’s U.S.-based, Taiwanese-American producer.

In this SPOTLIGHT STORY, I’ll highlight:

• the transpacific team throwing The Wedding Banquet,

• why the title is a local pride and joy,

• the potential and pitfalls of Taiwan’s musical theater market,

• the ways creatives have updated this 30-year-old story to match the times, and

• where The Wedding Banquet hopes to go after its Taiwan bow.

Grab a seat at the table.

RENEWING VOWS WITH A HOMEGROWN FAVE

Based on the 1993 Ang Lee movie, The Wedding Banquet stars Telly Leung (Aladdin, Allegiance) as a gay, happily partnered Taiwanese man in New York who orchestrates a marriage to a woman to live up to the expectations of his tradition-minded parents. The film is an object of local pride: It’s the first Taiwanese movie to be nominated for an Academy Award, and an early work by Taiwanese director Lee, who went on to win Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi.

The musical itself also has something of a following in the territory. The new production, directed by Gordon Greenberg (whose Broadway staging of Huey Lewis musical The Heart of Rock and Roll opened in April), is a significantly retooled version of a show that first premiered in Taiwan in 2003.

The groundwork for this new iteration was laid in a couple of 2023 concerts that tested the developing material. “We had autograph sessions after the concerts, and people brought their tickets from the show 20 years ago for us to sign,” says Matt Eddy, the writer who’s rethinking the story with the blessing of the original book writer Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal). “It feels like an important show for people out here in the gay community and in the Taiwanese nationalist community, to be a cultural flag for this country.”

Hua Musical International, one of the few commercial entities producing theater in Taiwan, partners on The Wedding Banquet with Yang, who starred in the original production and is credited as its conceiver and co-writer. (He also appeared in the original Broadway cast of Miss Saigon.) Except for American actors Leung and Matt Shingledecker, the new production’s 17-member cast is comprised of locals.

“As we produce The Wedding Banquet, we will also focus on nurturing Asian musical theater talents,” says Hua Musical principal Eric Kuo. “We aim to invest more production resources in creating stories that can connect with audiences globally.”