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.”)

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 quietly hurting people for decades.

Why specifically did you want to make this a scholarship fund? 

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. I can’t get a publicist and have them put me on, like talk shows and magazines because the structures are not built up that way. I won’t get booked on those outlets, on those things, because structurally, it’s not built for me. The only power I have is when I walk out on stage and my talent and in storytelling and portraying a variety of characters. One of the reasons I feel like I was able to go straight from Here Lies Love as Ninoy Aquino, the revolutionary leader of the Philippines into playing Abraham Lincoln [in Oh, Mary!], was because I realized very early that I had to have a range and talent that was undeniable. I want to provide that for younger Asian American men that are coming up in the theater to dig in, because that is what it takes. Not only do you deserve, you have a right to be here. But because the traditional outlets to getting on a stage and expressing yourself in your craft are not available to us, we have to invest in the rehearsal room. We have to invest in the training program because God knows it’s just so much harder.

It sounds like you’re also focusing on a younger generation of actors. 

Since I put this scholarship together, I’ve gotten messages from my Asian American actor friends, some that I haven’t talked to in a while that were like, “I’ve had a really tough little while, and I was losing hope, and this has given me hope to stay in it.” I think we can provide more hope in future generations by providing more resources and support early on in their career.

What do you make of the outpouring of donations to the GoFundMe? 

It makes me emotional. It makes me feel like I’m a part of a community. It makes me feel like there is space, not only for me, but for the people, my friends that I care about in this industry, and the people that will be coming up behind us. It gives me hope that it’s going to get better, and that we have resources, and that are people that are committed to creating a better way forward.

Is there a goal number or just as high as it goes? 

It’s just as far as it goes. If we get to a high enough number, my dream is that we can set up a foundation that we can just keep funding and keep supporting year after year. I have this dream of doing a week of workshops that then culminates in the awarding of the scholarship. But the workshop is paid for for whoever gets into it. Again, I’d made zero plans to do this until 24 hours ago. But knowing that I’m not alone, because of the number of people who have donated and reached out makes me so much more motivated to make it something that can have the maximum impact for the maximum amount of time.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.