Life of Bruce Lee inspires martial arts spectacular

Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang had been toying with the idea of a theatrical ode to Hong Kong-bred martial arts star Bruce Lee for almost two decades before the debut of his latest work.

"I've wanted to do a show about Bruce Lee since the mid-1990s. But throughout the 2000s I tried to do it as a musical, and it just wasn't working," Hwang says in an interview with the Signature Theatre.

"The idea of doing a play that would have musical numbers with martial arts and dance influenced by martial arts seemed exciting to me, and the movement would move the story forward-the way that a song does in a musical."