Pun Bandhu Finds His -- And Others' -- Place on Stage

Pun Bandhu confesses to having been naive when he graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 2000. After having no difficulty being cast in a wide variety of roles in plays while at school, the actor faced real-world obstacles when he left New Haven to pursue his professional career.

Being passionate about working on new works by young artists, he targeted Off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons as a theater where he most wanted to perform. 

But forget about being cast there, he learned. Even after working in films (Michael Clayton, Burn After Reading, Can You Ever Forgive Me?), on TV (Bluebloods, and a recurring role in a One Life To Live), on Broadway (Wit), and Off-Broadway and regional theaters throughout the next decade, he could never even get an audition there.

“They never called me to play even a [minor] role as a doctor, lawyer, or neighbor, much less a leading role,” he says. When he finally got an audition in 2011, “it was only because a white playwright had written a character that was specifically Asian.”

That was the last straw for Bandhu, who after much deliberation posted his frustration on Facebook, “knowing what the ramifications could be” in going public on social media.

“I think as actors you never want to be seen as complaining, as disgruntled or being a diva,” says Bandhu from his home in Cornwall, Connecticut where he lives with his husband Marc Falato “I think Asians are taught growing up—and this is a generalization, but it is part of every Asian culture—not to rock the boat.”

His posting set off a quake that caused a tsunami of responses, mostly from other Asian-American, working theatre artists. The more than 400 comments echoed the frustrations, anger, and humiliations they faced over the years at theaters across the… |CONTINUED|