Elizabeth R. OuYang, a civil rights attorney and at the time president of the New York chapter of OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates, approached David Henry Hwang with a view to him writing a play about the affair.

[3][4][5][6] An American Soldier premiered on 13 June 2014 at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater with Andrew Stenson as Danny Chen and Guang Yang as his mother.

[7][8] In her review of the premiere for The Washington Post'', Anne Midgette wrote that the "quasi-Asian effects" in the orchestral score provided "not only textural richness but also an evocative illustration of the challenges Chen faced trying to blend his Chinese and American identities."

He contrasted this with the orchestral writing noting its "intensely communicative dissonance" which he attributed to Huang Ruo's "flair for exploiting tonal extremes in the instruments.

Relying less heavily on the courts-martial transcripts than the 2014 version, the expanded libretto adds new material which explores the relationship between the characters in more depth, especially that between Danny Chen and his mother.

A new main character was added, Josephine Young, a high school friend of Danny's who gave up her "creative dreams" to follow her parents' wish that she become a doctor.

[10][11] The world premiere of the expanded version of An American Soldier took place on 3 June 2018 at the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Webster University.

The courtroom scenes and the soldiers' testimony are interleaved with flashbacks depicting the events leading up to Chen's death and his life in New York before he enlisted in the army against the wishes of his mother.