Jodi Long is the first Asian-American actress to win an Emmy Award, an accomplishment worth noting during June’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The witty, talented writer-performer is currently lighting up the Bucks County Playhouse with an original, biographical work. Chandler Lutz, of CBS3, drew back the curtain on the tour-de-force night of entertainment.

Long has an eclectic background to say the least. She’s the daughter of a Chinese-Australian tap-dancing father and a Japanese-American mother. The couple had a nightclub act in the 1940s–1950s and even appeared on the then-career-making Ed Sullivan Show.

As is common in show-biz families, Long was occasionally interwoven into the act. By the time she reached college, it was time to dive into a legitimate study of stagecraft.

“…Going from vaudeville to Shakespeare,” she described.

American Jade is Long’s autobiographical exploration into her identity. Its script is a personal collection of influential stories and their tellers, which she refers to as “imprints.”

Its first iteration was as a film documentary. But Long then adapted it as a one-woman show.

Her history-making Emmy was for Dash and Lily, which ran on Netflix.

American Jade remains onstage at the Bucks County Playhouse until June 11.

More information on Jodi Long and her run in Bucks County (including the theater’s latest masking policies) is at CBS3.