<P> M. Butterfly is a play by David Henry Hwang loosely based on the relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Shi Pei Pu, a Peking opera singer . The play premiered on Broadway in 1988 and won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Play . </P> <P> M. Butterfly premiered at the National Theatre, Washington, D.C., on February 10, 1988 . </P> <P> The play opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 20, 1988, closing after 777 performances on January 27, 1990 . It was produced by Stuart Ostrow and directed by John Dexter and starred John Lithgow as Gallimard and BD Wong as Song Liling . David Dukes, Anthony Hopkins, Tony Randall, and John Rubinstein played Gallimard at various times during the original run . A highly unusual staging featuring Puccini's music and the Kazakh countertenor Erik Kurmangaliev in the title role was undertaken by Roman Viktyuk in Russia in 1990 . </P> <P> The play was a 1989 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama . </P>

Who played the leading man role in m. butterfly's 1988 broadway production