Boston Theaters Lack Asian American Works

Boston’s 2026-27 theater season is two months old, yet productions centered on Asian American life remain scarce across the region’s major stages.

The season began in September, and no plays or musicals focused specifically on the Asian American experience are scheduled at the American Repertory Theater, The Huntington, the Emerson Colonial Theatre, the Boch Center Wang Theatre, the Boch Center Shubert Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Lyric Stage Boston, the Charles Playhouse, or ArtsEmerson. Smaller regional companies, including Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Greater Boston Stage Company, Umbrella Stage Company, Apollinaire Theatre Company, and Actors’ Shakespeare Project, also have no such titles in their current lineups. Summer seasons at North Shore Music Theatre, Gloucester Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, Barrington Stage Company, and Shakespeare & Company similarly featured no productions on the topic.

Asian Americans make up more than 10 percent of Boston’s population and 8.5 percent of Massachusetts residents, according to the US Census Bureau. Nationally, the group comprises 7 percent of the population. The Boston Globe noted that while Asian Americans have made economic and political strides, their onstage representation has not kept pace with these demographic shifts.

Broadway offers limited relief. Of 32 current productions, only “Maybe Happy Ending” is Asian-themed, depicting robots in South Korea rather than Asian American life. None of the 22 new Broadway productions slated for this season focus on Asian Americans. “Maybe Happy Ending” will run at the Citizens Opera House as part of the Broadway In Boston season.

Smaller venues are filling some gaps. CHUANG Stage, founded to cultivate Asian American stories, is presenting Alex Lin’s “Laowang” about a Chinatown family fighting a developer. The company recently staged “The Sitayana” and “My Home on the Moon.” Boston Playwrights’ Theatre will stage Yide Cai’s “White Phoenix” in November. Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge will present “Barbed Wire” in January, and Wheelock Family Theatre will stage “When You Trap a Tiger” in February.

Company One Theatre has not yet finalized its 2026-27 lineup, though it previously co-produced “Learning to Read by Moonlight” with CHUANG Stage. The Huntington is developing works by Lloyd Suh and Mahira Kakkar, with no productions scheduled before June 1. Merrimack Rep will host a workshop reading of Kalean Ung’s “Letters From Home” trilogy part two.

The season runs through June 1, 2027. Theaters including Front Porch Arts Collective and Central Square Theater will produce a spring version of “Working” that includes immigrant worker stories, at least one of which focuses on an Asian American experience.