The Great Leap, Starring B.D. Wong, Opens at American Conservatory Theater
(© Kevin Berne)
American Conservatory Theater's production of Lauren Yee's The Great Leap officially opens tonight. Performances in the Geary Theater began on March 6. It will run through March 31.
B.D. Wong reprises the role of Wen Chang that he played off-Broadway last year at Atlantic Theater Company. He is joined by Arye Gross (ABC's Castle), Tim Liu (Pan Asian Repertory Theatre's Incident at Hidden Temple), and Ruibo Qian (Bull in a China Shop at LIncoln Center Theater).
Lisa Peterson directs this production, which features scenic design by Robert Brill, costume design by Meg Neville, lighting design by Yi Zhao, sound design by Jake Rodriguez, and video design by Hana Sooyeon Kim.
The Great Leap is described as follows: "When a college basketball team from San Francisco is invited to China for an exhibition game in 1989, a smack-talking American coach prepares to take on his protégé — now grown and bent on crushing the Westerners. But after a public high school star from Chinatown joins the American team, his actions in Beijing become the accidental focus of attention, escalating the fractured history between the coaches. Funny, urgent, and contemporary, this slam dunk of a sports drama from Yee — developed at A.C.T.'s New Strands Festival in 2017 — explores cultural identity, global politics, and the collision of cultures and generations."
