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What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres

Posted by Suzanne Kai - on Sunday, 08 May 2022

What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres
What’s Going On? Everything, All at Once By Ben Fong-Torres MAY 8, 2022 With “Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres” the documentary about me, now out today and streaming merrily along on Netflix, I’m officially in the film industry.  Actually, that’s been the case since last June, when the documentary, which stole its title from a popular column at Asian Connections created by director Suzanne Joe Kai's son Mike when he was 14, premiered at the...

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My portrait of “New York actor Thom Sesma’s Makeup Transformation into Scar in The Lion King” on view in HHC’s New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2 Photo Exhibition through 7/14

Posted by Lia Chang on Monday, 27 June 2011

Lia Chang poses in front of her portrait of Thom Sesma's Makeup Transformation as Scar in Disney's The Lion King, at HHC’s New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2 Photo Exhibit opening reception at Bellevue Hospital on June 23, 2011. Photo by Brianne Michelle Photography

My portrait of “New York actor Thom Sesma’s Makeup Transformation into Scar in The Lion King” is featured in New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2, the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation’s Art Collection Photographic Exhibition, currently on view in the main lobby/atrium of Bellevue Hospital Center, 462 First Avenue in New York through July 14, 2011.

New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2, the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation’s Art Collection Photographic Exhibition on view in the main lobby/atrium of Bellevue Hospital Center, 462 First Avenue in New York through July 14, 2011. Photo by Lia Chang

Celebrating over seventy-five years of having public art in hospitals, the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation’s Art Collection proudly presents their traveling photographic exhibition, New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2. This exhibition is a modern take on the 1950’s photographic exhibit, Family of Man. The exhibit features a collection of black and white, color, and digital prints that focus on different aspects of iconic imagery; architecture, landscape, culture, and people through-out the five boroughs and snapshots of the NYC experience.

New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2, the NYC Health and Hospitals...

Filmmaker Justin Lin Acquires Film Rights to David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish

Posted by Lia Chang on Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Filmmaker Justin Lin Acquires Film Rights to David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish

Justin Lin (Photo by Lia Chang)

Filmmaker Justin Lin, who is responsible for Universal’s mega-successful FAST AND FURIOUS franchise has just acquired film rights to David Henry Hwang’s critically acclaimed comedy CHINGLISH hailed by TIME Magazine as the BEST PLAY of 2011.

CHINGLISH, a romantic comedy with a timely, political spin debuted at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and follows its Broadway run with an international tour beginning at Berkeley Repertory Theatre this fall. Lin will direct and produce the film for his company, Barnstorm Pictures.

“As soon as I saw CHINGLISH on Broadway, I began to envision this smart and insightful cross-cultural comedy as a film. I’m excited about working with David to bring this very timely story to the screen, ” said Lin.

Playwright David Henry Hwang in front of the Longacre Theatre in New York, where his new comedy Chinglish played on Broadway through January 29, 2012. Photo by Lia Chang


“I’ve loved Justin’s work ever since he burst on the scene with Better Luck Tomorrow, and it feels very right to be collaborating with him on the movie verision of my play, said playwright Hwang, a Tony Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Hwang will write the screenplay and is set to co-produce the film with Bobbi Thompson.

Click here for the Lia Chang Articles Archive and here for the Lia Chang Photography Website.

Lia Chang. Photo by Brianne...

Photos: Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri’s “Bakwas Bumbug” at The Wild Project in NY

Posted by Lia Chang on Monday, 27 June 2011

Opening night for the cast and creative team of Bakwas Bumbug at The Wild Project in the East Village on June 22, 2011. (L-R) front row- Rehana Lew Mirza, Rohi Mirza Pandya, Lipica Shah, J. Kaitlin Becker, Roopa Mahadevan; back row Shiv, Nick Choksi, Kiarri D. Andrews, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Ryan Kim, Christian Carter, Andrew Guilarte and Samrat Chakrabarti. Photo by Lia Chang

Last night, I got a taste of Christmas in June, Desi style, at The Wild Project in the East Village, where Bakwas Bumbug, an electrifying musical reinvention of A Christmas Carol, told thru the looking glass of NYC Immigrants and Hyphenated America, composed by Samrat Chakrabarti and featuring a book and lyrics by Sanjiv Jhaveri and Samrat Chakrabarti, is being presented as a 70 minute workshop production through June 26, 2011.

Sanjiv Jhaveri and Samrat Chakrabarti, co-creators and co-directors of Bakwas Bumbug at The Wild Project in the East Village after the opening night performance on June 22, 2011. Photo by Lia Chang

Presented by Desipina and Co. (Rehana Lew Mirza, Artistic Director & Rohi Mirza Pandya, Producing Director), Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri’s Bakwas Bumbug is a delicious treat, poignant, touching, and laugh out loud funny.

Bakwas Bumbug cast with co-creator and co-director Sanjiv Jhaveri in rehearsal at DANY Studios in New York on 6/16/11. © 2011 Lia Chang

Bakwas Bumbug , the first Indian American full length musical written, composed & performed by the Diaspora,...

Q & A with Soham Mehta, Award-winning Filmmaker of Fatakra

Posted by Lia Chang on Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Q & A with Soham Mehta, Award-winning Filmmaker of Fatakra



In Soham Mehta’s Fatakra starring Samrat Chakrabarti, Meena Serendib, Ritik Goyal, Raj Vats and Conrad Gonzales, Chakrabarti gives a soulful performance as Naveen, a tailor who left his wife and son in India to chase his dreams in America. During Naveen’s reunion with his family after a much belated homecoming, he realizes he has a lot to make up for. Now he must learn from his son’s favorite hero, Arjuna, if he hopes to reconcile with his estranged family. Chakrabarti also composed the score for Fatakra, Mehta’s haunting and powerful meditation on longing, loss and family.

Soham Mehta Photo by Lia Chang


Born in India and raised since the age of four in Texas, South Asian American theater and film artist Soham Mehta was bitten by the acting bug, performing in his first play when he was eight years old.

As Mehta continued collecting stage credits over the next twenty years, his interest gravitated towards writing and directing. Mehta studied theater and computer science as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin. No stranger to multi-tasking, Mehta founded Shunya, a Houston-based theater troupe dedicated to providing a voice to the South Asian American experience, and spent the early part of his professional life working in technology by day and directing plays by night. After leading the troupe for four years, Mehta returned to Austin to pursue his MFA in film production as a Warren Skaaren Fellow.

As the founder of Shunya, Mehta...

David Henry Hwang’s Chinglish is Broadway Bound this Fall; Goodman Theatre Photo Feature

Posted by Lia Chang on Friday, 01 July 2011

Xu Yan (Jennifer Lim) meets with Daniel (James Waterston) to further discuss his business proposal. credit: Eric Y. Exit

Chinglish, the critically acclaimed new comedy by Tony Award-winning and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly), will make its Broadway premiere in the Fall of 2011 at a Shubert Theatre to be announced, following its world premiere production at Goodman Theatre in Chicago this summer. Casting for the Broadway show will be announced soon.

“This is a very funny, very timely play,” said producer Jerry Frankel. “Jeffrey Richards and I are thrilled to bring David Henry Hwang back to Broadway.”


“This is a very funny, very timely play,” said producer Jerry Frankel. “Jeffrey Richards and I are thrilled to bring David Henry Hwang back to Broadway.”

Peter (Stephen Pucci) offers himself as a business consultant to help Daniel (James Waterston) pitch his signage company in China. credit: Eric Y. Exit

Chinglish is about the unpredictable complications that ensue when an American businessman, despite his self-possessed cultural ignorance, seeks to expand his market by forging a relationship with government officials in a major Chinese city. Although he has hired an Australian entrepreneur who has lived in China to assist him, he soon finds that the complexities of such a venture far outstrip the expected differences in language, customs and manners – and calls into questions even the most basic assumptions of human...

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