Editing David Henry Hwang (section)

===Branching out / national success===
After this, Papp also produced the show ''[[Sound and Beauty]]'', the omnibus title to two Hwang one-act plays set in [[Japan]]. At this time, Hwang started to work on projects for the small screen. A television movie, ''[[Blind Alleys]]'', written by Hwang and Frederic Kimball and starring [[Pat Morita]] and [[Cloris Leachman]], was produced in 1985 and followed a television version of ''The Dance and the Railroad''.<ref name=newyorktimes/>

His next play ''[[Rich Relations]]'', was his first full-length to feature non-Asian characters. It premiered at the [[Second Stage Theatre]] in New York.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/22/theater/stage-rich-relations-from-david-hwang.html|title=Stage: 'Rich Relations'|first=Frank |last=Rich|work=The New York Times|date=April 22, 1986}}</ref>

Hwang's best-known play was ''[[M. Butterfly]]'', which premiered on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in 1988. The play is a deconstruction of [[Giacomo Puccini]]'s opera ''[[Madama Butterfly]]'',<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/m-butterfly-miss-saigon-interview_83073.html|title=Metamorphosis From 'Madama Butterfly' to 'M. Butterfly' and 'Miss Saigon'|publisher=Theater Mania|date=November 7, 2017|access-date=13 February 2024}}</ref> alluding to news reports of the 20th-century relationship between French diplomat [[Bernard Boursicot]] and [[Shi Pei Pu]], a male Chinese opera singer. Shi purportedly convinced Boursicot that he was a woman throughout their twenty-year relationship.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-21/83-embassy-worker-center-m-butterfly-story-still-enigma|first=Jake |last=Cigainero|title=At 83, the embassy worker at the center of the 'M. Butterfly' story is still an enigma|publisher=PRI|date=September 21, 2017|access-date=February 27, 2019}}</ref> The play won numerous awards for Best Play: a [[Tony Award]] (which Hwang was the first Asian American to win), the [[Drama Desk Award]], the John Gassner Award, and the [[Outer Critics Circle Award]]. It was the first of three of his works to become a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.