Francis Jue

Francis Jue is an American actor and singer born on September 29, 1963, in San Francisco, California, where he was raised in the Richmond District as the sixth of nine children of Chinese American parents Frank and Jennie Jue. His father worked as an engineer for the U.S. Navy. Jue attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory, where he participated in the school's drama program, and later earned a B.A. from Yale University.

Jue's Broadway career spans from 1988 to 2024 and encompasses both plays and musicals. His first New York stage appearance came in 1984 in Pacific Overtures, in which he played the boy in the tree and the Dutch Admiral. He returned to that production on Broadway in 2004–05, this time in the role of Madam. His Broadway work in M. Butterfly began in the 1989–90 original production, where he understudied Song Liling and Comrade Chin; he subsequently understudied those same roles in the first national tour before starring as Song Liling in the second national tour. In the original Broadway production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, which ran from 2002 to 2004, he created the role of Bun Foo. In 2024, he returned to Broadway in Yellow Face, reprising the role of HYH and others that he had originated off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2008; that production was filmed by PBS.

Jue's off-Broadway work is extensive and has earned him significant recognition. His 2008 performance as HYH in David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face at the Public Theater brought him both a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor and an Obie Award, as well as a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. He returned to the Public Theater in 2018 for Wild Goose Dreams, a play by Hansol Jung, earning a second Obie Award. In 2019, he reprised his role in Soft Power at the Public, receiving Drama Desk and Lortel Award nominations as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical; the show's cast album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. In 2020, he played Duch in Lauren Yee's Cambodian Rock Band at Signature Theatre, winning the Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play and receiving additional Drama Desk and Lortel nominations. In 2021, he starred in Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 at Signature Theatre's Pershing Square Signature Center, a production that won the Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival; the cast was also nominated for the Lortel Award for Outstanding Ensemble. In 2022, he created the role of Howard in Yilong Liu's Good Enemy at the Minetta Lane Theatre for Audible Theater. In early 2024, he played the Wizard in the Encores! staging of Once Upon a Mattress.

Additional off-Broadway credits include Dr. Mendel in the 2006 National Asian American Theater Festival revival of William Finn's Falsettoland; multiple roles with the New York Shakespeare Festival in productions of Hamlet, King Lear, The Tragedy of Richard II, Pericles Prince of Tyre, Timon of Athens, and The Winter's Tale; Dream True: My Life with Vernon Dixon at the Vineyard Theatre; Oscar in Chay Yew's A Language of Their Own at the Public Theater in 2005; and Vice-Principal Huang in Warren Leight's No Foreigners Beyond This Point, also in 2005. In 2009, following recovery from a back injury sustained in a fifteen-foot fall during rehearsals for A Midsummer Night's Dream, he appeared as Father in Coraline with MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. He returned to the Public in 2011 as Sir Nathaniel in Love's Labor's Lost. In early 2014, he played Bruce Lee's father in the Signature Theatre Company premiere of Hwang's Kung Fu. He appeared in Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness, which premiered at Goodman Theatre in Chicago in fall 2014 and reopened at Manhattan Theatre Club in early 2015, with a production of My Favorite Year at York Theatre Company in December 2014 in between those runs. Jue is scheduled to play Cleante in Tartuffe at New York Theatre Workshop in late 2025.

Jue's regional theatre work has been equally broad. He has performed at TheatreWorks in the San Francisco Bay Area in numerous productions, including Cabaret, for which he received a Bay Area Critics Circle Award, Floyd Collins, Into the Woods, which he also choreographed and for which he received a second Bay Area Critics Circle Award, and multiple productions of M. Butterfly and Yellow Face. At The Muny in St. Louis, he starred in the title roles of The King and I and Peter Pan and played the Engineer in Miss Saigon. He also appeared as the Engineer in Miss Saigon at North Shore Music Theatre, earning an Elliot Norton Award. Other regional credits include the title role in M. Butterfly at Hippodrome Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, and Vineyard Playhouse; the MC in Cabaret at Cider Mill Playhouse and Sacramento Music Theatre; Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream at Arizona Theatre Company; Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman at TheatreWorks, for which he received a Dramalogue Award; the King in The King and I at American Music Theatre of San Jose and Carousel Dinner Theatre; and Mr. Oji in Philip Kan Gotanda's After the War at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Beyond the stage, Jue is known for his recurring role on the television series Madam Secretary, which ran from 2014 to 2019, and has appeared in film and other television productions. His awards include the 2025 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Play, both for Yellow Face, along with two Obie Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, a Dramalogue Award, an Elliot Norton Award, and a ZONI Award, among other honors. His work spans Shakespeare, David Henry Hwang, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Disney, across Broadway, national tours, off-Broadway, and regional theatre.