LIGHTS UP ON: BD Wong
Backstage at La Jolla Playhouse

(La Jolla website, 31 July 2009)

http://lajollaplayhouse.com/blog/lights-up-on-bd-wong


Full Name:

Bradley Darryl Wong

Hometown:

San Francisco, CA

First Broadway show you saw:

I think it was Little Me with Mary Gordon Murray and Victor Garber.

Preparation before a show:

shower, pee, brush teeth, electrolyte water, sit-ups, pee, incessant texting: “I’m turning the phone off now…” Pee.

Dream role:

IAGO

Worst costume:

“Panther” costume: La Cage Aux Folles — a horrifying unitard ensemble of black spandex, copper-colored leopard print slingback 4 inch heels, gloves with Lee press-on nails sewn into the fingertips, a 3-foot tail, pink ears and false eyelashes. I vaguely resembled a mannequin in an adult bookstore window display.

Worst job:

TIE. The Substitute 2 (movie, starring Treat Williams), or Men of War (movie, starring Dolph Lundgren). DO NOT NETFLIX. YOU WILL HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME.

Favorite audition piece:

monologue from The Paper Chase, Everybody Says Don’t (these are from ages ago).

Favorite part of the production process:

1. getting picked, 2. design meetings, 3. first performance after the show is frozen.

Guilty pleasure T.V. Show:

Intervention, Obsessed - real-life research for how people really behave when they are not acting.

First stage kiss:

With Gabrielle Motarjemi, on the River City footbridge, The Music Man, high school junior year. Unforgettable.

If you could see anyone perform:

Noel and Gertie

Worst onstage mishap:

opening night of Herringbone, Williamstown Theatre Festival, 2007- impaled leg slamming into the corner of a piano bench - 30 stitches and the surreal experience of stopping a show to go to the hospital.

How you have been described?

“intense,” “a handful,” “funny,” “incorrigible,” “likes food,” “overextended,” “naughty,” “…but he means well.”

How you’d like to be described?

FUNNY, I care most about FUNNY for some reason. He could cook. He was not a bad parent. Loved surprises. It would be unbelievably awesome to be thought of as “authentic.”

Do you color inside the lines or out?

There are lines?

What book have you read multiple times?

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

If you could live during any other time period, what would it be?

1940s (without the internment) for the clothes; 1970s, (without Vietnam) for the sex; Mesozoic, for both.

How would you spend a million dollars?

Solar panels, Gay Marriage, whatever Mom wants, trust for grandchildren (with a condition of public service), foundation for promising Asian-American talent, foreskin restoration.