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By Grant Aarons
Yu Hin Bryan Chan is a musical theater actor and vocal coach. He was raised in Hong Kong and attended both the University of Michigan and The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He is an accomplished musical theater actor and vocal coach who was classically trained at the renowned SeanyMac Studios. Chan is currently pursuing his acting dream in New York City looking to break into the Broadway scene. Bryan has always been a proponent of supporting others in his community and continues to uphold those standards. Despite his success, appearing in a highly acclaimed play immediately following his time at Michigan, Chan always takes the time to uplift others in the Asian theater community. He has appeared in a wide variety of shows such as theatrical productions in “Much Ado About Nothing,” musicals as Erkin in “Exist: The Musical,” and as a producer in his own “Late Night Vibing: Asian R&B.” We are lucky to have the time to sit down with such a selfless and talented individual.
-How did you get into musical theater? Did your parents approve?
Yu Hin Bryan Chan-To be honest, musical theater was something that never got me very enticed. There is such an extroverted quality to it that never really got me very involved. I was always a little introverted, it’s one of those reasons that my mom enrolled me in the choir at 5 years old, it was really a means to broaden my social spectrum. But the story behind me finding my muse for musical theater is actually quite intriguing. My girlfriend at the time begged me to audition for the romantic lead that was opposite her in “In The Heights”, a Lin Manuel Miranda play produced by the Theater School at the University of Michigan. I ultimately gave in, auditioned for the part and ironically enough she got the role of the opposite romantic lead, meaning we ended up watching each other kiss other people on stage! From there, it really enlightened me and instead of harboring misconceived notions about musical theater I fell in love with it.
-Did your parents approve?
I know there is this stereotype of tough Asian parents, but my mother enrolled me in choir at a young age and has always been supportive. I did go to the University of Michigan as a double major, Electrical Engineering and Voice Performance (classical), so I always had a “conventional” route that put my parents’ minds at ease. But when I dropped out of Electrical Engineering and concentrated more on Vocal Performance and musical theater there was a period where my parents had their doubts. However, as soon as I started to get roles and show that it was a viable career option I won over their full approval, and now they are very supportive. If you walk into the living room you might just hear them listening to my voice recordings on loop!
-You name “The King and I” and “Late Night Vibing: Asian R&B” as two of your stand out performances, do you feel like you connect to the story more because of your background?
Absolutely! “Late Night Vibing: Asian R&B” is a personal project of mine that holds significant value to me far beyond the performance. I love Asian R&B and there is this classification of all Asian music as K-Pop, but there is so much more than meets the eye. I want to highlight the Asian R&B singers that are out there, such as Keshi, Niki, and Joji who are in their rights already as huge stars and bring them to the attention of people in America. Every too often styles get grouped by region (K-Pop is all Asian Music, Reggaeton is all Latin Music) and I want to facilitate the change in that and bring to the awareness the soulful enchanting tones of Asian R&B. This particular project helps inform me of who I want to be as a performer as well: create space to generate artwork that speaks to myself.
As for “The King and I”, that’s a whole completely different story. For so long plays like “The King and I” and “Miss Saigon”, were the only representation of Asia onstage. The major problem with that is these plays were written by American playwrights such as Rogers and Hammerstein, and they don’t fully reflect the culture in the way a person of Asian heritage would. So I struggled with this notion of this certain play a lot, I questioned the stereotypes in it but ultimately decided that this performance was a worthwhile endeavor. It was an all-Asian cast, and this allowed us to revisit and rearrange old material in a way to see it through a modern-day lens. The play was written up very well and I believe we did the original and our Asian culture a service through our performance.
-How do you feel about Asian representation in theater?
It’s definitely on the rise. I continue to see more audition calls and opportunities being curated for the Asian community. It has come a long way since the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s. The roles that are being offered are different and less limited than they were. There are less stereotypes and more realistic representations of people of Asian heritage. More likely so, the writing culture for musical theater is more diverse as it brings in different perspectives and allows for a richer comprehension of cultures.
-Talk about the actors that paved the way and how you feel about them taking roles that could be demeaning to the Asian community.
This has always been a more pivotal discrepancy. It’s so easy to look at an actor doing a stereotypical Asian accent in a production and think down on it. But I have come to terms over time that you can only get the opportunities that are there for you. When you talk to the trailblazers, they are proud of the work they’ve accomplished. It’s so easy to judge from the outside looking in, but they got to do the job they wanted, so far be it for me to judge them, especially with the doors they have opened up to future generations. The evolution of change has come from the writers and producers, creating a better set of characters that reflect Asian culture and people more realistically.
-Who do you look up to the most in musical theater and why?
Honestly, I look up to my friends and colleagues more than anything. To see people who I am close to succeed makes me believe even more in myself and my ability to succeed. It’s apparent to me that hard work pays off, and I have seen the hard work pay off firsthand. My good friend Timothy Lee, for example, was just cast in the Broadway run of “Hadestown” as the understudy of Orpheus, he is the first-ever Asian Orpheus! It’s a huge accomplishment and one that I am happy to celebrate. We have to constantly uplift each other, and not get tunnel vision. As actors, we tend to focus on ourselves and block out everything else, but Asian actors have really uplifted each other and I truly aspire to follow in those footsteps.
