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Video: Connie Wongs Unite to Celebrate A CHORUS LINE with NAAP
Jul 1, 2025
Just last month, the National Asian Artists Project (NAAP) held its 2025 Gala Benefit celebrating the 50th Anniversary of A Chorus Line and honoring the role of “Connie Wong,” directed by the original “Connie Wong” Baayork Lee. The special day brought together 16 Connies who played the role between 1976 and 2025. Watch in this video!
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Tonight means so much to me that all of these ladies have had a career because of Connie
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because Asian actresses were not hired, and I was one of the very few
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World. The National Asian Artist Project returns to the corner of Chinatown and Broadway
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honoring the role of Connie Wong for the 50th anniversary of Michael Bennett's landmark musical, A Chorus Line
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The evening featured many of the Connies who played the role from 1976 to 2025
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and the evening's benefit was directed by NAAP's founder and the original Connie, Tony Award winner, Bai Ark Lee
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Tonight you're honoring the Connie Wongs. What that means to you? It means so much to me. I never thought that, you know, I always thought Connie was a very small part
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and that, you know, we didn't mean very much. And Michael kept saying, no, this is an ensemble piece
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And I go, oh, yeah. But, you know, one day I was shopping at Bloomingdale's
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Not at Macy's, at Bloomingdale's. And these ladies come running at me
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And they said, Connie, Connie, Connie. And I went, yes, yes, Connie. And they said, yes, we saw the show
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And you meant so much to us. And I think at that point I realized that the Connies did mean something to a lot of people
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But tonight means so much to me that all of these ladies have had a career because of Connie
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Because Asian actresses were not hired. And I was one of the very few
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And so to have them have this role that they can carry on And go on to Miss Saigon And then go on to other shows They started with this and I so happy And I got 16 young actresses who play the role from 1976 to 2025
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And they're coming from Hawaii. They're coming from Maine. They're coming from all over
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We're celebrating them tonight. What is this show in this role of Connie mean to you
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Oh, my goodness. I think it is an amazing Asian sisterhood. This is actually the first time we were just talking about it that so many Connies would be in the room together
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Because, you know, there's only ever one in the Chorus Line show. And the fact that we're all here gathered today means so much
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I've had the blessing of being Connie. And that opened the door for me to get to do eight Broadway shows, which was really a huge dream for me
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But since then, you know, life is long. And I've done a pivot turn away from that
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and I've moved to Arizona and I'm now a full-time software engineer and I've got kids and it's like
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you know, it's a very different life from the whole New York glitz thing. And it means a lot
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to me to like get this call from Bayork and like, you know, I kind of like put on a different costume
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and a different hat in my current mode, but to be able to come back into this room of like
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influential women in the history of Broadway, I'm so honored to be part of the legacy
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Janet Wong is one of the other honorees here tonight. And when I was 14, I was going to a
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magnet school and I got taken to see Janet Wong, among other people, at the Kern Theater in San
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Francisco. And my friends had seen it before me and they said, there's an Asian in this show and
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you could play her And I was like that no I don believe you I don believe you at all And I went to see the show and I sat there with my mouth open not knowing or not understanding what was happening and not realizing
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that about 10 years later, I would be working with half of those people in, in an international
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tour of a chorus line. And like tonight, being able to meet that woman again, um, in person and
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say thank you to her. And also being able to say thank you to Bayarch for creating her
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is just a really special full circle moment. So I replaced Lauren Kayahara in New York
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She went out to L.A. to replace Bayork. But originally, Bayork was leaving
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and I was supposed to take Bayork's place in L.A. So I was at the airport, and I hear my name paged
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Janet Wong, go to the white telephone. And I was with my boyfriend, who is now my husband
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and he said, no, no, just calm down. It's all right. It's all right. It wasn't you
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I said, no, it was my name. And I went, and it was Peter Von Meyerhouser
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And he said, don't get on the plane. Don't get on the plane
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You're going to stay and do it in New York. Lauren's going to L.A. Meanwhile, my trunk had gone
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I gave up a rent-controlled apartment. I mean, come on. But you know what
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It was worth it. It was well worth it. So you have an incredible journey with NAAP and Bayorica to Corsela
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Yes, I do. I got my start with NAP as a teacher for the theater club down at PS 124
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And then I started working and kind of joining the choir that she started
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And she always kept me in the back of her brain for opportunities or fingers crossed for that And then she called me one day and said hey do you want to learn a chorus line as I put it up at a university in New York and I said absolutely
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and from there uh my whole world has changed I've been able to go to the Hollywood Bowl and assist
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her with that back in I think it was 2017 um from there a tour went out so I toured the U.S
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as the dance captain and assistant choreographer and then I was fortunate to go to Japan with the
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tour and then New York City Center happened and I was very fortunate to be a part of that cast
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as a swing and the assistant choreographer on that and that's where I made my New York
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performing debut. Oh well my favorite memory is when we were getting ready to do the Tony Awards
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yes so the first half we taped right after a show so we're dancing on 6th Avenue and what's
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that street 50th street in front of radio city music hall marvin hamlish is on the piano like
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in the building and then cut to the live show when we're coming up on the elevators for one
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and you have 6 000 people cheering out there for you and the people watching live like all over the
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world that's probably my like best memory from a chorus line yeah oh my god um i wrote about it
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how at the White House, we performed at the White House, and everybody was so pumped, and the
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orchestra was so fast, that during the circle, the grapevine circle, I was like lifted up in the air
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and I was totally off the ground, and I thought I was going to fly into the White House
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but thank God I got back to the ground, and yeah, we made it. Nobody fell. Everything was fine
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