The Heat Is On In Saigon
Texas' Lou Diamond Phillips to headline Miss Saigon at Fort Worth's Casa Mañana this summer
Fort Worth audiences last saw Lou Diamond Phillips onstage in 2007.
Fifteen years after he graced the Casa Mañana stage in A Few Good Men, Lou Diamond Phillips is returning in June to headline their production of Miss Saigon.
The 1989 Tony Award-winning musical, written by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, and Richard Maltby Jr., is a 1970s spin on Puccini's 1904 opera Madame Butterfly, telling the doomed tale of an Asian woman abandoned by her American military lover.
Phillips will star as The Engineer, the French-Vietnamese owner of the Dreamland nightclub in Saigon during the Vietnam War. No further casting has been announced.
Casa Mañana’s production of Miss Saigon is directed and choreographed by Greg Zane and music directed by Edward G. Robinson Jr.
Phillips rose to fame appearing in such movies as La Bamba, Young Guns, Courage Under Fire, and Stand and Deliver. He received a Tony Award nomination for his starring role in the 1996 Broadway revival of The King and I.
His TV credits include the Fox series Prodigal Son and Netflix series Longmire, along with Amazon’s Goliath, FX’s You’re the Worst, CBS’ Blue Bloods, and recurring roles on Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Netflix’s The Ranch.
He received an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Drama or Comedy” for his roles in both Amazon’s Conversations in LA and History Channel’s Crossroads of History.
Recent film credits include the upcoming Amblin feature Easter Sunday, Warner Brothers’ The 33, Created Equal directed by Bill Duke, and Sundance Festival favorite Filly Brown, for which he was named Best Actor at the Imagen Awards.
Phillips is also a director, having recently helmed episodes of Fox’s The Cleaning Lady and Prodigal Son, AMC’s hit series Fear the Walking Dead, Longmire, and ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
And here's a fun fact: Phillips also writes. His novel The Tinderbox: Soldier of Indira, with illustrations by his wife Yvonne, was published in October 2020. He has co-written the screenplays for Trespasses and HBO’s Dangerous Touch.
He wrote the Miramax feature Ambition. He produced his play Burning Desire, a romantic comedy in two acts, which received its world premiere at The Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Originally born in the Philippines, Phillips was raised in Texas and is a graduate of University of Texas at Arlington with a BFA in drama.
Miss Saigon runs June 3-11 and tickets are on sale now. Prices start at $59 and may be purchased by visiting www.casamanana.org or at the Casa Mañana Theatre box office at 3101 West Lancaster Ave. in Fort Worth.
