Conrad Ricamora attends The 78th Annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 08, 2025 in New York City. Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment On Sunday, Conrad Ricamora, a Tony-nominated actor currently starring in Oh, Mary! on Broadway, announced the creation of a scholarship fund for Asian American male actors. The idea for the fund came from "decades of erasure" of Asian American men in the theater industry, Ricamora says, but also took place days after a casting controversy at Maybe Happy Ending, which has prompted outcry from members of community. The Tony Award-winning musical, which came to Broadway from South Korea, announced that a white actor, Andrew Barth Feldman, would be replacing Darren Criss, who had won a Tony Award for his role and became the first Asian American actor to win best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical. The show follows two robots living in Seoul, and had featured actors of Asian descent in the leading roles and understudies in its various stage iterations, with Criss pointing to the show as progress for the AAPI community. (The show's creators have said the the role is one that "welcomes different interpretations and lived experiences.") Related Stories Lifestyle Rachel Zegler Returns to 'Evita' in London Friday After Exiting Performance Mid-Show Thursday Night Lifestyle Andrew Barth Feldman to Star in Broadway's 'Maybe Happy Ending' Still, Ricamora said the recent pain felt by members of the community around the casting has been reverberating for years, and is something he can relate to from his own personal experience and after having "spent the last year reflecting on how often Asian American male actors are asked to prove that they belong on stage and in programs and in the story." The scholarship, called The Right To Be There, is meant to fund MFA or BFA scholarships for Asian American male actors. The donations have been pouring in, with the GoFundMe surpassing $40,000 by Monday evening, which includes $18,000 from Ricamora. "I wanted to create a scholarship that specifically promoted funding for training. As an Asian American man, your talent has to be so undeniable. That's the only way you can make your way in this," Ricamora said. He's now beginning to set up meetings on the infrastructure for the program, given its runaway success. Ricamora, who has also starred on Broadway in The King and I, Here Lies Love and in the television series How To Get Away With Murder, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about why he's focused on the younger generation, as well as his experience in the industry. What inspired you to start this scholarship fund? I'm a 46-year-old man who's been living in an Asian American man's body for my entire life, and the slings and arrows, as Shakespeare would say, of existing in that body have taken a toll collectively, and I know that I'm not alone. Because so many of my friends are in this industry, and they are Asian American men, and I'm looking at this picture of my dad with me on his shoulders as a baby, and I'm like, 'Oh, this is generations of pain. It's not just about this moment. This is generations of pain that we need to start addressing and put positive investment in.' And so I want young Asian American men in acting programs to feel seen. I want them to know that someone is making space for them and that they have a right to be there. Can you talk about what that pain is? It's about decades of erasure that Asian American men have felt in theater. I wanted to make sure that that didn't go unacknowledged. There are tons of examples available to cite from, so I'm not going to cite any of them, but, it's about decades of erasure and that this wasn't about just one moment. And I wanted to change it. I wanted positive momentum moving forward, so that the people behind me have less of this to deal with. Can you unpack what you mean by erasure? Do you mean in terms of not having parts written for Asian American men, or not getting cast, or all the above? Well, it's like what is a part that is written for an Asian American man? I would question that. I would then turn that back on to the industry and to even journalists, to be like, when you ask me that, what do you then think of as a part for an Asian American man? Which is then like, 'Oh, sit with that.' I want the industry to sit with that question for a little while, because the industry needs to sit with these questions and acknowledge these questions. Was the scholarship fund specifically in response to the Maybe Happy Ending casting? That controversy definitely resonated, and it reminded me that progress is still fragile for Asian American men in theater, but this scholarship isn't just about one moment. It's about a pattern that's been qui