13 Facts About Welly Yang

Wellington "Welly" Yang is a Taiwanese-American producer, actor, singer, and writer.

Welly Yang's father was a resident physician in UW Health University Hospital in 1967, and afterward President of "North American Taiwanese Medical Association in New York" in 1986.

Welly Yang's mother returned to Taipei in 1991 to direct foreign affairs for the Democratic Progressive Party.

Welly Yang grew up in Great Neck, New York, and graduated from the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey in 1990.

In 1993, while a senior at Columbia, Welly Yang was picked to star in the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon, where he went on to play the lead role of Thuy.

Welly Yang left the Miss Saigon company in 1995 to tour Asia in the title role of Aladdin in Cole Porter's Aladdin.

That same year, Welly Yang was cast by the American opera director Peter Sellars' to play one of the leading roles in John Adams world premiere of I Was Looking At the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky.

Welly Yang returned to the New York stage in 1998 as Whizzer in NAATCO's non-traditional casting of William Finn's Falsettoland.

In 2001, Welly Yang co-hosted the talk show Studio Y on MSG Metro Channels, where he interviewed celebrities that included Tina Fey, Ed McMahon, Leslie Bibb, and many others.

In 2005, Welly Yang premiered the musical concert Finding Home, a show that paralleled the story of his parents to that of him and his then girlfriend Dina Morishita.

In 1997, Welly Yang founded Second Generation, a New York-based theater company dedicated to bringing Asian American stories to the world's stage.

Welly Yang turned his creative passion to architecture and design while in Los Angeles, designing and building several homes that earned recognition as 'Home of the Week' in the prestigious Los Angeles Times.

Welly Yang worked with Yang to redevelop the musical Wedding Banquet, after a 20 year hiatus.