“Born and Raised in San Francisco, CA, Lia Chang is a Chinese-American actor, a multi-media content producer, an award-winning filmmaker, a photo activist and documentarian, who lifts up and amplifies BIPOC communities and artists and the institutions that support them. Lia is also the host and Executive Producer of BACKSTAGE PASS WITH LIA CHANG, a weekly Arts and Entertainment and Lifestyle program that airs on Sundays at 6:30pm on FIOS 34, RCN 83, Spectrum 56/1996 and MNN2.
Bev’s Girl Films’ debut short film, Hide and Seek was a top ten film in the Asian American Film Lab’s 2015 72 Hour Shootout Filmmaking Competition, and she received a Best Actress nomination. BGF collaborates with and produces multi-media content for artists, actors, designers, theatrical productions, composers, musicians and corporations. Lia has worked with Tony, Emmy and Grammy winner André De Shields since first appearing opposite him in Lonnie Carter’s Gulliver at La MaMa.
As an actor, Lia made her stage debut as Liat in a national tour of South Pacific with Barbara Eden and Robert Goulet, directed by Geraldine Fitzgerald, and was featured as Joy in Signature Theatre Company’s revival of Sam Shepard’s 1965 Obie award winning play, Chicago directed by Joseph Chaikin at the Public Theater. Off Broadway credits include: Jeff Weiss’ Obie Award winning Hot Keys (Naked Angels), Raunchy Asian Women (Ohio Theatre), The Confirmation (The Vineyard), Behind Closed Doors (MCC), Power Play (Billie Holiday Theatre), Two Gentlemen of Verona, Underground Soap, and Famine Plays (Cucaracha Theatre), Derek Walcott’s Marie Laveau at the Castillo Theatre (New Federal Theatre). Lia has appeared in the films Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman. She stars in and served as Executive Producer for the short independent films Hide and Seek, Balancing Act, Rom-Com Gone Wrong, Belongingness and When the World was Young (2021 DisOrient Film Audience Choice Award for Best Short Narrative).
Lia is also an internationally published and exhibited portrait and performing arts photographer and an award-winning multi-platform journalist. Lia was a syndicated columnist for KYODO News, writing about arts and entertainment in her What’s Hot in New York column from 1995-2004. Lia was recently profiled on Asian American Life Lia writes about arts and entertainment on her Backstage Pass with Lia Chang blog. The Lia Chang theater portfolio collection, 1989-2011, is housed in the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) collection located in the Library of Congress’ Asian Reading Room and can be accessed here; Lia Chang Photography Collection in The Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library.
Awards: 2000 OCA Chinese American Journalist Award, the 2001 AAJA National Award for New Media, 2022 Prospect Muse Award. Lia is an AAJA Executive Leadership Graduate (2000), a Western Knight Fellow at USC’s Annenberg College of Communications for Specialized Journalism on Entertainment Journalism in the Digital Age (2000), a National Press Photographers Association Visual Edge/Visual Journalism Fellow at the Poynter Institute for New Media (2001), a Scripps Howard New Media Fellow at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism (2002), a National Tropical Garden Environmental Journalism Fellow (2003), and a 2022 Prospect Muse Award. www.liachang.com, www.liachangphotography.com
Click here for the Lia Chang archives and here for the Lia Chang Photography archives.
Backstage Pass with Lia Chang 