As the play’s author David Henry Hwang describes it, “Golden Child tells of a wealthy and polygamous Chinese merchant in 1918, who embraces the new religion of Christianity. In so doing, he sets off a power struggle between his three wives and forever changes the lives of his succeeding generations.” The play opened at the Public Theater in 1996 and won a 1997 Obie Award for Playwriting. It moved to the Longacre Theatre on Broadway in 1998 where it won a Tony nomination for Best Play. In her minimalist design, Paula Scher merely alludes to the theme of the play, showing a mask of an Asian woman’s face suspended on a graduated orange and golden-yellow ground.