Kevin Malgesini was working through a conundrum. The Seattle Children’s Theatre (SCT) managing director was preparing for the production of Young Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story to run in Seattle for two weeks in March and then for another two-week series in April at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (The Kennedy Center) in Washington D.C. The play is about Lee’s formative years in Seattle, before he became a pop culture icon embodying the mastery of physical movement and mental discipline.
Like in any dramatic story, there’s a point where the main character faces a moment of crisis. This past winter, Malgesini faced more than one. Should SCT continue to run its production at The Kennedy Center or pull out? If it cancelled the contract with the historic performing arts center, SCT would lose the money promised for the two-week performance -- about $80,000. If SCT stopped the run, would the local Seattle theater be able to raise enough money to pay performers for the lost performances? Would the theater be able to compensate for its own losses? Malgesini needed to make decisions with his team.
Those decisions were prompted by a number of changes at The Kennedy Center. In February 2025, Trump dismissed some board members and appointed new ones who elected Trump as the board chair. Since then, a parade of artists have canceled performances. On December 18, the board voted to rename the center The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
“Things at the Kennedy Center had been shifting since the fall,” said Malgesini, who lives in the Central District. In September, he and the rest of the production team began discussing how they should respond to Trump’s changes to The Kennedy Center leadership and operations. By December and early January, there were conversations with the performers about the possibility of pulling out of The Kennedy Center lineup.
While ticket sales for public showings of Young Dragon at the Kennedy Center were low, about 2,000 young people were booked to see the performances through scheduled school field trips. “We thought about those people and our desire to serve them,” said Malgesini.
SCT knew that if they pulled out, the performers would lose pay. What’s more, the group is majority-union, and health insurance for union actors requires they achieve a certain number of professional work hours every six or 12 months to earn coverage.
“Young Dragon is a show that costs more to make than the revenue it will generate,” said Malgesini. So SCT had been fundraising since it announced the show last year. Pulling out of the Kennedy Center lineup would increase the fundraising needs.
Ultimately the production team -- Malgesini and SCT artistic director Johamy Morales, playwright Keiko Green, director Jess McLeod and Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s daughter -- thought about their values amid the changing landscape at The Kennedy Center. There was only one thing to do: They cancelled. The public announcement came on Jan 20.
Now SCT is dealing with the repercussions. To make up for the $80,000 loss, a few donors created a matching fund of $50,000. Smaller individual donations flooded in. They’re still working to reach the goal of compensating for the cancelled shows.
Meanwhile, the theater has extended its Seattle run by two weeks so more people can view the production and performers can make their professional performance hours for insurance benefits.
“What’s been amazing has been to see the community step up and support us making a decision that was in line with our values,” said Malgesini.
The journey of bringing “Young Dragon” to the stage began eight years ago when SCT had started exploring a production about Bruce Lee. They connected with Shannon Lee, and in 2022, SCT partnered with the Kennedy Center to co-commission the play and brought in the playwright and director.
“Instead of focusing on Bruce Lee at the height of his fame, as the master of philosophy and martial arts, we’re telling the story of how he overcame maybe one of the darkest parts of his life to become that person” Green said. “It shows him in all of his flaws. What’s helpful for young people is seeing that it’s not like this zen philosophy came naturally to him because he was getting into fights.”
While Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco, he spent his childhood in Hong Kong where he was known as a young hot head. His parents decided he should return to the U.S. and since his father had friends in Seattle – Ping and Ruby Chow – he moved there. Lee stayed in a space above the couple’s restaurant, and he worked as a dishwasher and waiter. He also attended the University of Washington, started teaching martial arts classes in Seattle, and met his wife. Lee is buried at Lake View Cemetery on Capitol Hill.
To write the play, Green referred to Jeff Chang’s book, Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Changing of Asian America and Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee written by Shannon Lee. Lee also shared some of her father’s letters and essays with Green to help uncover “what was going on inside” him.
Green said rather than presenting what an experience naturalistically looks like, the team explored how to depict loneliness on stage or what falling in love feels like to help the audience get inside Lee’s feeling.
Though Bruce Lee passed away in 1973, his iconic image has endured for decades and is considered “old school cool.” A new USPS postage stamp of Lee was unveiled in Seattle last month, and a statue of him is being planned for Hing Hay Park. Lee’s philosophies are integral to his image and persona.
“In a time like now where everyone’s so overwhelmed with quick media, his philosophies are about being present and in the moment and being patient,” Green said. “Those are all things that we could learn from in 2026.”
Young Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story, at Seattle Children’s Theatre, 201 Thomas St., runs through Mar 29.
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This article is published under a Seattle Human Services Department grant, “Resilience Amidst Hate,” in response to anti-Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander violence.
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