“Yellow Face,” which is now performing at Boston’s Lyric Stage Theater on Clarendon Street, was written some 17 years ago. But in many ways, it’s just now fully enjoying the spotlight. The play, by award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, will mark its Broadway premiere starring Daniel Dae Kim this fall and an Audible version is currently available. “Issues that are at the center of it, issues like representation and appropriation and whitewashing and casting, they were still relatively obscure issues […]

Chinese director Yang Qiu presented his first feature film “Some Rain Must Fall “ at this year’s Tribeca Festival in New York. The film depicts the story of Cai, a mother and housewife who deeply values her family, but whose life loses track and spirals out of control after an unexpected accident. The film received the Encounters Special Jury Award at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival and premiered at the festival’s International Narrative Competition. Yang Qiu, a prominent filmmaker […]

Photographer Skip Schiel keeps a photo of a boat full of refugees hanging on his wall in his home in Cambridge. It’s not a photo that he took, but one that was sent to him in a fundraising campaign. “I’m looking at it right now,” he said during a phone call with the Sampan. “It was made by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It’s a boat full of people of different colors, maybe a 100 or more, looking […]

The quality of a picture book depends on the compatibility of two major elements: the words and the images. How well do the images communicate with the text? Are the images competing with the text, or is there an ideal symbiotic relationship between the two? In “We Who Produce Pearls: An Anthem for Asian America,” the written reflections of Joanna Ho find a perfect balance with the vivid and colorful wall-mural style men, women, children, and beasts from Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s […]