“American Jade,” the on-and-off-stage story of Emmy winner Jodi Long’s show business family, opens the Bucks County Playhouse season May 20 to June 11.
Her new play, “American Jade,” written and starring Long, not only connects the dots between an actor-daughter and her Vaudevillian parents, but chronicles their lives, onstage and off, weaving their family history into a story that reflects both the joys and hardships of the immigrant experience in the U.S. in the last century.
When the actress and playwright took her first steps on the Broadway stage in Sidney Lumet’s production of “Nowhere to Go But Up,” she was entering a professional world that ran through her family’s bloodline.
Long’s vaudevillian parents had long trod the boards – they even appeared on the “Ed Sullivan” show in the 1950s.
By the time Long took to Broadway again as Madame Liang in the Broadway 2002 revival of Rodger and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song,” she completed a circle started by her father — Larry Leung, who starred in the original Broadway production 40 years earlier.
The official opening night performance is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 21.
Single tickets to “American Jade” are on sale now. Season ticket packages are still available. Visit buckscountyplayhouse.org or call 215-862-2121.
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