Making Spaces for Ourselves: Queer Asian American Bodies in Contemporary American Musical Theatre

“Making Spaces for Ourselves: Queer Asian American Bodies in Contemporary American Musical Theatre” examines the queer strategies of space-making within and relation to the musical theatre form, arguing that queer Asian Americans actively create spaces of belonging on the musical stage. I argue that queer Asian Americans respond to histories of exclusion, alienation, and ostracism by challenging and resisting discriminatory structures of musical theatre, looking particularly at strategies employed in Be More Chill, Interstate, and {my lingerie play}. Major case studies of Asian representation in musical theatre history show Asian lands, cultures, and people as exoticized, Orientalized figures, positioned on the margins and wings of the stage. This project considers queer Asian Americans as the main protagonists—examining how their embodiments reveal sociocultural, political, and historical conversations. Through these main case studies and autoethnographic explorations, I have outlined four strategies of survival and utopic world-building that contribute to a growing repertoire of queer Asian American strategies. In this project, I have highlighted actors’ embodiments as modes of creating alternative dimensions of race, gender, and sexuality in characters, looking particularly at George Salazar and Jason Tam’s performances in Be More Chill. Another strategy that I investigated through Interstate, is writing material that considers the interplay of race, gender, and sexuality that in turn builds homes and spaces of belonging through the musical theatre form. Additionally, I analyzed Diana Oh’s work in {my lingerie play} as a strategy of creating a utopic space within theatre through protest, punk, and affect. In my final fourth chapter, I introduce alternative modes of knowledge production, creating space within theatre scholarship that centers the sensorial body by proposing a new research method entitled sensation-as-research. By analyzing these four approaches to space-making with the musical theatre form, I delve into thorough examinations of queer Asian Americans as major contributors to musical theatre and performance history.

Department dc:contributor.department

Theatre

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Kawahara, Mina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Browne, Jyana S

Language dc:language.iso

en

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.13016/ia2q-yauw

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:drum.lib.umd.edu:1903/35892