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Josephine Lee
She/her/hers

Josephine Lee is a scholar, educator, and dramaturg whose work focuses on modern and contemporary theater and Asian American studies. 

Josephine Lee is a professor of English and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and the author of Race in American Musical Theater. Her other books include Oriental, Black, and White: The Formation of Racial Habits in American Theater, The Japan of Pure Invention: Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, and Performing Asian America: Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage.

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Essay

A Black Rose, Racial Histories, and the 2024 Broadway Revival of Gypsy

26 March 2025

Josephine Lee discusses the casting and performance choices of the 2024 Gypsy revival—from Audra McDonald’s Rose to a Chinese waitress in yellowface—to consider what they signal about the complex histories of racial performance that continue to influence theatre today.

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