STAR-BULLETIN / 2001
Jade Stice, left, joins Nataysha Echeverria, Cliffton Hall, Deedee Lynn Magno and Welly Yang in "Hello Broadway," a production at Blaisdell Concert Hall tomorrow, which features songs from popular Broadway hits.
Giving regards Jade Stice is a survivor of The Great White Way. Well, OK, it helps being Asian when you're going for a role in "Miss Saigon" or the latest revival of "The King & I." Beyond that, good roles in American theater -- roles that aren't specifically defined for those who look "exotic" -- can be hard to get.
to Broadway
Jade Stice of 'Miss Saigon' fame
comes home to perform
By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comStice, a former Hawaii resident and one of the feature performers at tomorrow's "Hello Broadway" shows at the Blaisdell Concert Hall, has been based in New York City since 1991.
"I'm not getting any younger, so I figure I have maybe five more years here ... but actually I've never been happier," Stice said in a quick cell-phone interview from somewhere on the streets of New York last week.
"The work is not quite so steady, but I had a really good run there for a while. I don't know if it's a downswing or an upswing but, right now in particular, it's pretty bad ... jobs are very few and far between. You can go to an audition, and where there used to be a hundred people, there's 500. It's been a bad year for a lot of people since September 11."
But Stice has been using her downtime to work elsewhere and on other projects. She says that songwriting has been her "next greatest passion" ever since high school, and she's beginning to think about recording.
"I've written about 12 songs, and I'm working on some stuff on my own, working with a producer on that, although recording is such a totally different world and one that I'm not completely familiar with."
Jade Stice made her mark in local theater in productions of "13 Daughters" and "Dreamgirls" at the Hawaii Theatre, and as the female lead in Diamond Head Theatre's 1990 production of "Singin' in the Rain," before taking off for New York and a role in the original Broadway cast of "Miss Saigon."
She returned to Hawaii in 2001 to star in DHT's spring production of "Chess" and received a Po'okela Award nomination for her work as director/choreographer on "Jekyll & Hyde" last fall.
"It's been an interesting year," she said of her life since then. "I came back to New York after September 11 and things kind of came to a standstill here. Luckily I was already cast in 'Jekyll & Hyde' in the role of Lucy for a Georgia run, so I choreographed that and got to play the lead, and they asked me to come back and teach for the summer. I spent the summer down there teaching. I had 250 kids and it was amazing. And then Welly contracted me to do this concert."
"Welly" is Welly Yang, founder and artistic director of Second Generation, a theater production company that exists to provide opportunities for Asian-American actors. One of his projects is "Hello Broadway" and Yang and Stice will be joined by Cliffton Hall, Deedee Lynn Magno and Nataysha Echeverria. Jason Robert Brown will conduct the 25-piece Honolulu Broadway Orchestra.
COURTESY OF WELLY YANG
Welly Yang, left, is the founder and artistic director of Second Generation, a theater production company that exists to provide opportunities for Asian-American actors. Besides being in "Miss Saigon," Yang has toured East Asia in a production of "Aladdin."
The program will include standards from an assortment of familiar Broadway fare and also introduce songs from two musicals conceived and developed by Wang, "The Wedding Banquet" and "Making Tracks."
"He just creates a lot of platforms for Asian-American performers to create their art," Stice said. " 'Making Tracks' has just done amazing things, and they're starting a new show, 'The Wedding Banquet' (based on Ang Lee's movie), and he sponsors a lot of cabarets. Welly's group is a nice place to go to be able to create your music, your art and your play. If you have a script idea, he'll look at it, and if he likes it, he'll put money behind it and find a space for you."
People living in Hawaii generally take open casting for granted and readily accept Asian actors playing characters originally written as Caucasian. On the mainland, however, even when ethnicity isn't relevant, most directors still tend to think "white," unless the playwright specifies otherwise.
Stice has experienced this after she left "Miss Saigon."
"Until I left 'Saigon' and was cast in the Broadway tour of 'Jekyll & Hyde,' I never thought I was different," she said. "All of a sudden, people were calling me 'Little Brown Girl.' It felt interesting to be the outsider, because growing up in Hawaii, I'm certainly not one, and in 'Miss Saigon,' I wasn't either. People there aren't surrounded by this kind of ethnic diversity."
There seems to be a few more opportunities for Asian actors these days, she says, but not enough, not yet. Second Generation is helping change that.
Stice notes that the company is also presenting original theater that addresses the experiences of Asians and Asian-Americans. "Making Tracks," for example, is a musical about the Chinese laborers who helped build the first transcontinental railroad and who also faced horrendous racial prejudice.
"A lot of things get glossed over (in history books)," she said. "I'm not really on the race wagon, having grown up in Hawaii, but I really do see a need for education, definitely, and to be proud of who you are. It took me a long time to realize that I'm different from everybody here and to embrace that. They call Hawaii the melting pot, and New York is as well, but somehow they don't mix as much. There are a lot of neighborhoods in New York, but they're kind of segregated."
And so she's looking forward to coming home again this weekend.
"I've been really fortunate to be able to come home for 'Chess' and again for 'Jekyll & Hyde.' I've got two nephews now and it's so amazing to be able to come home and be able to work and spend time with my family. The older I get, the more often I want to come home. And I love working there."
Where: Blaisdell Concert Hall 'Hello Broadway'
When: 2 and 8 p.m. tomorrow
Tickets: $24 to $58
Call: 591-2211
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