Welly Yang

Welly Yang

My hero is a stage singer of Broadway, Welly Yang. He is Chinese born and grew up in the United States. Both of his parents are Taiwanese. Yang grew up and started his career in New York. Although he majored in political science, he still got into the field of performing arts.

His first job in Broadway was acting as a Japanese worker who couldn’t speak English fluently. Though he speaks fluent English, he was often typecast when assigned a role. It seems that American media often stereotypes people of Asian ancestry. Often, they are assigned roles as bad guys.

There are many excellent Chinese lawyers, doctors or bankers around him, but there are few stories in dramas or movies about these people. He decided to tell their stories to change the common misperceptions and and disregard. In 1997, Welly created a noncommercial theatrical company, Second Generation Productions. He invited some Chinese-American stage singers in Broadway to write the stories about the talents of these outstanding Chinese and the roles they played in the society.

In 1998, he began a great project. He invited Woody Pak, who won more than 16 soundtrack awards in International Film Festivals, and Brian Yorkey, who composed many melodramas, to compose a melodrama, Track. The melodrama, Track, was the story which commemorated their ancestors. Welly wished everyone to know that Chinese are the same as other immigrants from other countries. They dreamed and looked for a wonderful life in a unfamiliar country.

Welly Yang

It is young people that Welly wants to attract to watch his melodrama because most of them don’t know their ancestors very well. To attract young people, he made his melodrama, Making Tracks. New York Times praised his work as energetic and hopeful. What really inspires him is the feedback from the audiences. Someday, he will bring his masterpiece to the Broadway stage.