{"id":35991,"date":"2014-03-06T04:30:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T04:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=35991"},"modified":"2014-03-06T04:30:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-06T04:30:16","slug":"featured-writer-daniel-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=35991","title":{"rendered":"Featured Writer: Daniel York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Featured Writer: Daniel York<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Banana Writers\u200b: Where Asian writers get unpeeled<\/a>
\n2013-10-11<\/p>\n

P. P. Wong<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daniel York<\/a> is a successful\u00a0scriptwriter, director and actor who is passionate about championing\u00a0equal rights for creative\u00a0East Asians.<\/p>\n

Born of mixed Chinese and\u00a0English parentage,\u00a0the talented\u00a0British writer was\u00a0selected as part of the Royal Court\u2019s Unheard Voices initiative for emerging East Asian writers. As a result of this,\u00a0he was invited on to the Royal Court Studio writers group<\/a>. His short play Song Of Four Seasons <\/em>(\u56db\u5b63\u6b4c) featured recently in Tamasha Theatre’s Music & Migration Scratch Night<\/em> and his other full length play Fake Chinaman In Rehab<\/em> was given a rehearsed reading by 3rd Kulture Kids in New York City.<\/p>\n

As an actor, his\u00a0feature films include\u00a0Rogue Trader<\/em>, starring Ewan McGregor<\/a>,\u00a0The Beach<\/em> (directed by Danny Boyle<\/a>) opposite Leonardo Di Caprio<\/a> and the action film\u00a0Doom<\/em>\u00a0starring The Rock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Theatre work in London includes Mu-lan\u2019s award\u00a0winning production of Porcelain<\/em>\u00a0at the Royal Court and Forinbras opposite Alan Rickman’s<\/a> Hamlet <\/em>at the Riverside Studios.\u00a0He has won the prestigious Singaporean\u00a0Life! Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Pangdemonium\u2019s production of Dealer\u2019s Choice <\/em>and\u00a0Freud\u2019s Last Session<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Daniel is currently starring with Katie Leung<\/a> (Harry Potter) in the play\u00a0The\u00a0World\u00a0of\u00a0Extreme\u00a0Happiness<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He is also\u00a0challenging\u00a0racist stereotypes of Chinese people through\u00a0his hilarious\u00a0play\u00a0The Fu Manchu Complex.<\/em><\/p>\n

In an exclusive interview with\u00a0BW\u00a0<\/strong>Daniel took time out of his busy schedule to\u00a0share\u00a0his wisdom about scriptwriting and what it really takes to get a play to the stage…<\/p>\n

…You have worked in the British arts industry for over fifteen years. Would you like to share your experiences as an East Asian artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I could actually write a book on this subject (maybe I should!).<\/p>\n

When I first left drama school \u00a0I was immensely lucky as there was a theatre company called Mu-lan who put on gritty, edgy work that completely challenged stereotypes and was absolutely prepared to risk being controversial (in a good way). I was in plays like Porcelain<\/em> (<\/em>about a gay Chinese man who murders his boyfriend in a Bethnal Green<\/a> toilet) which transferred and sold out at the Royal Court, <\/em>Take Away<\/em> (about a Chinese take away family in Hainault, Essex facing the winds of change) and, later on, <\/em>Sun Is Shining<\/em> <\/em>(about a dysfunctional relationship between a mixed-race City trader and an alcoholic artist) which transferred off-Broadway New York.<\/p>\n

Despite (or perhaps because of) this, Mu-lan lost its funding and there was literally no high-quality theatre work with challenging roles for East Asian actors. Without that you\u2019re left with the mainstream and the mainstream industry in the UK has a real problem with East Asians.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t know how to write for them and they often don\u2019t know how to cast them. The only roles on TV are ridiculously stereotypical but even worse nearly always ridiculously bland. Plus it\u2019s difficult to land those roles if you\u2019re a mixed race male.<\/strong> If you can\u2019t do TV it\u2019s hard to do theatre. I\u2019ve found a bit of joy in classical theatre but even now, with the CV I\u2019ve got, I generally won\u2019t be considered for Shakespeare or whatever. One theatre director who wanted to cast me in the lead in a play was met with the argument \u201cbut he\u2019s Chinese!\u201d from the theatre boss.<\/p>\n

Generally with all acting you have to be able to portray a clich\u00e9 successfully before you can move on. The most successful theatre actor of this generation is arguably Simon Russell Beale. I can remember seeing him early in his career play three camp, portly fops in Restoration comedies at Stratford. Literally the same role three times. But he was so good at it he became successful and then was able to break out.<\/p>\n

But if all you can get seen for are take-away owners and waiters and you don\u2019t look Chinese enough you\u2019ve had it…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Featured Writer: Daniel York Banana Writers\u200b: Where Asian writers get unpeeled 2013-10-11 P. P. Wong Daniel York is a successful\u00a0scriptwriter, director and actor who is passionate about championing\u00a0equal rights for creative\u00a0East Asians. Born of mixed Chinese and\u00a0English parentage,\u00a0the talented\u00a0British writer was\u00a0selected as part of the Royal Court\u2019s Unheard Voices initiative for emerging East Asian writers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,16,13743,8,10],"tags":[17059,17058,17057,17060],"class_list":["post-35991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-asia","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-banana-writers","tag-banana-writers-where-asian-writers-get-unpeeled","tag-daniel-york","tag-p-p-wong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}