Stanford alumnus and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang ‘79 will kick off a partnership between Stanford and the New York Public Theater by conducting a residency on campus starting in February, University officials announced Monday.

Hwang has high hopes for his residency at Stanford.

“I hope to use my time at Stanford to continue rewriting and reworking my new play, ‘Yellow Face,’ in preparation for its upcoming productions in Los Angeles and New York,” Hwang said.

Hwang’s residency will give students and community members the opportunity to witness an internationally renowned playwright at work.

“Being able to work with and learn from a celebrated playwright is not only an exciting opportunity for student performers and writers, but is also important in fostering a dynamic arts community on campus,” said sophomore Grace Mandler, who performed in Ram’s Head Theatrical Society’s Winter One-Acts this year.

“The idea here is to rethink the relationship between the University and the arts, so that the University becomes a patron, supporter and incubator of the arts,” Drama Department Chair Harry Elam Jr. said.

In addition to the residency program, the partnership will offer a fellowship program for students which will include post-graduate internships at the Public Theater, Elam said. This year’s fellows will be chosen in May.

The Stanford Initiative for Creativity and the Arts is funding the program and will seek to establish relationships with local theaters in the future, but Elam called the partnership with faraway New York Public Theater a good move for the University.

“The Arts Initiative is pursuing a relationship with San Francisco Opera, but the rationale for the Public Theater is its reputation and connections between theater officials and Stanford faculty,” Elam said.

Hwang’s residency is just one of several arts events set to occur on campus in the next few months.

“This is part of a larger series of artist residencies that are going on at Stanford, which include residencies with poets, artists, pianists and percussionists,” Robert Cable, public relations manager for Stanford Lively Arts, said. “We are just awash with artist residencies at the moment.”

This year’s residency program will include a discussion between Hwang and visiting drama professor Stan Lai, whom Elam characterized as “one of the most well-known playwrights in contemporary Asia.”

Sophomore Kenneth Lam, who performed in the Original Winter One-Acts, said he is enjoying working with Lai on his play “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land,” which will be performed on campus later this quarter.

“It’s been pleasant working with an Asian director,” Lam said. “I’ve been acting for a while, and this is the first time I’ve been in a role that was written acknowledging my race.”

Many of Hwang’s plays focus on issues of race in society.

“‘Yellow Face’” is a comedy about mistaken racial identity, which blends truth and fiction to ask how much of our lives and self-perception is ‘real’ and how much are fictions which eventually become our truths,” Hwang said of the play he will workshop at Stanford before it opens in Los Angeles in May.

Hwang has been using drama to explore his ethnic roots since his undergraduate years at Stanford, when he formed the Asian American Theater Project and performed his first play.

“Since my very first play, ‘FOB,’ was written to be performed in the lounge at Okada House, I have had some experience premiering new work at Stanford,” Hwang said, “so it is incredibly serendipitous for me to do so again.”