The year was 1991 and Lea Salonga already had won a Tony for her performance as the lead character in Miss Saigon - but she was still struggling to find another role.
"My agent would be submitting me for auditions, [but people were still] like 'No, we won't see her because she's Asian. They were unable to imagine someone like me playing [those] roles," Salonga told the BBC.
But today it's that scenario that feels unimaginable, in an era when acts like BTS and Blackpink are dominating Billboard charts, shows like Shogun and Squid Games are sweeping the Emmys, and even Asian-led musicals are finding success on Broadway.
Salonga herself has since become a global Broadway icon. Revered as a national treasure in her native Philippines, she is also immortalised as the singing voices for not one but two Disney princesses, Princess Jasmine in Aladdin and the lead in Mulan.
But as her early struggles show, her path to fame was far from easy. The role that propelled her to fame - Eponine in Les Misérables - was only possible because she was able to skip the audition process entirely.
