Jeremy Lin musical the latest look at the rising NBA star - Toronto Star

New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin runs with the ball during their NBA basketball game against the New Jersey Nets at Madison Square Garden in New York, February 20, 2012.

New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin runs with the ball during their NBA basketball game against the New Jersey Nets at Madison Square Garden in New York, February 20, 2012.

EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

Daniel Girard Sports Reporter

There have already been numerous versions of Linsanity — the phenom, the clutch shot-maker, the mistake-prone rookie and the headline controversy.

Now, the latest foray into the over-hyped life of emerging New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, comes in a musical starring Vancouver's Kevin Yee.

"Jeremy Lin — The Musical" is a You Tube video that loosely retraces the story of the 23-year-old out of Harvard University who was overlooked by other teams before exploding onto the NBA scene the past two weeks.

"This is not necessarily a true story," read the titles at the start of the video. "Except that there is a guy named Jeremy Lin . . . and he is awesome."

Yee, a Canadian born, New York-based artist whose credits include the original Broadway cast of Mary Poppins, plays Lin in the video that runs for 7 minutes 30 seconds. He's met with racist taunts as he tries to join "basketball club" in high school in his native Palo Alto, Calif. but eventually wins classmates over on court.

"My name is Jeremy, a high school student," Yee sings to open the video. "I study real hard and I get good grades. It's hard I suppose because no one really knows that in a few years they'll all be screaming my name.

"I'm an American basketball hero. I'm an American basketball star."

It's one of several "under 10-minute musicals" that Yee has created.

"I've never really followed basketball but since Jeremy Lin stepped into the spotlight it's all i can talk about," Yee said in an email to the Star. "He's bringing Asians into American culture like never before and it's astonishing to watch."

Yee said as an Asian performer it's always been a struggle to find roles that weren't stereotypes such as "the friend" or "Starbucks barista."

"When Jeremy Lin first emerged I was joking to my friends that there was finally a role that I could play when they made a biopic of his life," Yee said. "Then I thought: Why wait."

Yee, who this summer will play Linus in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, said he wanted to make his video "as soon as I could because I was so inspired by (Lin's) rise to fame."

22 Feb, 2012


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