The Young Theatre Artist’s Competition is a major component of the Wuzhen Festival. 12 creative groups will be chosen to come to Wuzhen to perform a newly created work on a topic designated by the Festival. The jury will be comprised of luminaries and masters of the art, and on the final day of the Festival will choose a Best Play, which comes with a cash prize of RMB200,000 (US＄32260) and a Special Prize to the most outstanding artist, which comes with a cash prize of RMB60,000 (US＄9678).
The purpose of the competition is part of the vision of the Festival Directors, to establish a platform for the development of original theater works among promising young artists. The platform is for passionate and potential young playwrights and performers to present themselves, learn from world drama masters and broaden their horizons.
This year the Young Theatre Artist’s Competition of Wuzhen Theatre Festival is regretfully only open to Chinese applicants aged 35 and under or presenting their first theatrical work. In future years it is hoped to be open to young theatre artists from all over the world.
Schedule of Young Theatre Artist’s Competition
2014.6.1 Registration period opens
2014.7.30 Registration period closes
2014.8.31 Announcement of the 12 plays selected
2014.10.26 Participants draw lots to be divided into groups
2014.10.31 Ribbon cutting and debut
2014.10.31-2014.11.6 Performances of the 12 plays selected
2014.11.7 Announcement of the 3 plays advanced to the Finals
2014.11.8 The Finals
2014.11.9 The Awards Ceremony
About Young Theatre Artist’s Competition
“By virtue of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, we sincerely hope that more and more young and talented directors can realize their dreams. Wuzhen is the cradle of dreams, a little platform where the energy of youth can be on display.”
---Chen Xianghong
“It was very comforting to see the high level of the Young Theatre Artist’s Competition in the Inaugural 2013 Wuzhen Theatre Festival.”
---Stan Lai
“ The new generation of theatre artists is the future of Chinese theatre. The Wuzhen Theatre Festival offers these young theatre directors a platform to express themselves, as well as an opportunity to learn and communicate with the masters of theatre arts.”
---Huang Lei
“ The competition at times provided moments of startling beauty.”
---Shi Hang
“The Young Theatre Artist’s Competition empowered young directors with the strength to build their dreams.”
---Jia Xing Daily
"An interesting play with contents and guts. It plays with philosophy, showing through the brilliance of its drama that it has the tools to play. It reminds one of
Waiting for Godot, but with more of a celebration of actors' skills. It is the work of a mature creator, confident, moving its rows and columns around with ease. It is a philosophic carnival with an open scenario, a poor mouth that asks questions to the sky.
---Shi Hang, about the winner of the 2013 Inaugural Wuzhen Theatre Festival Young Theatre Artist's Competition Wuzhen Award, Chen Minghao, director of the drama BBMM
The Young Theatre Artist’s Competition
The Possible Hardy Tin Solider
Playwright / Director⊙Danlu Chen
Actor⊙Yonggang Zhao / Xiaohe Lu
Stylist⊙Mencheng Zhao
Lighting designer⊙Yujing Wang
Text⊙Lu Xiaohe
Dreams are pursued. Dreams are vaporized. All happen a hardworking young man gradually falls in love with the girl statue on a square on his commute. One day, on his way back from work, he finds this girl statue lying on the ground, so he stands her up and starts talking to her…
Death or Glory
Playwright / Director⊙Li Bo
Director / Actor⊙Xue Shifu
Actor⊙Cheng Yunpeng / Wu Yuti / Peng Junjie
A dying old man comes to his wife's grave, and takes out a harmonica, the relic left by his wife. Later, he’s dead, and the adventure begins…
The Record of an Orc’s Life Transformation
Director / Playwright⊙Aileen Chen
Actor⊙ Leif Liu / Lee Tengfei
Sound Designer / Keyboard Player⊙Nara Tan
Costume Designer⊙Cindy Zhang
Multimedia Designer / Graphic Designer⊙Luran Xiao
This story talks about how an orc transforms into a human.
A wild orc lives freely in jungle. One day, he is hit by a narcotic bullet, and wakes up in a cage. He finds himself in the special food storage of high-class restaurant. He tries everyway to escape but all fails, then he begins a long journey to mimic human…
This play is inspired by Franz Kafka’s novel, which is a surreal, absurd, and allegoric style. There are only two actors in the play, one play the role of orc boy, the other one would play the rest roles.
Kidnap
Playwright⊙Cao Tianyi
Director ⊙Cui Lei
Actor⊙Li Junbo / Cui Lei / Jia Junyuan
Sound Design⊙Mao Bowen
When it comes to a kidnap, what is your main concern? The motives, the goals, or the results…Generally, a report about kidnap would focus on those information, but what has happened between the kidnapper and the victim during their alone time might be known very little. What dialogue would they have? What would be changed among their emotion,attitude or even the roles? And does the word Kidnap act as we have ever thought? Everything is going to happen, while is going to flee. When the destination is close at hand,what should be there awaiting us? The answers would be in the hands of audience.
The Silence of Dreaming City Sleepwalkers
Direcotr / Playwright⊙Ng Shiu Hei Larry
Actor⊙Ng Shiu Hei Larry / Tsoi Wan Wa Shirley
Backstage Manager⊙Kwok Pui Yan
Dreams are pursued. Dreams are vaporize. All happen in this place called “city”. Between the possibility and impossibility of dreams, the majority turns into “sleepwalkers”, with “silence” as their golden rule. It is a city wearing a dress of manifold voices, having the silent majority as its cells and the sleepwalkers as its fuel.
In this city, how many dreams do we have and how many silences do we have?
Silence for pursuing dream, silence of losing dream, silence after realizing the cost of dream, silence of having no dream to chase, silence of forgetting dream, silence when there is no difference between dream and illusion, silence when life shows itself to be bubbles of dream, silence when life is occupied by concerns with more weight than dream…Please tell me how many kinds of silences are still out of our horizon…Please tell me the cost of silence…
This is a work of physical theatre that turns images into poetry, rather than a traditional drama with single narrative: We use corporeal movements, masks, illustrations and sounds as media to explore the “dreaming sleepwalkers in the city” as well as “the city of dreaming sleepwalkers”, and to disclose those questions with even more universality behind all these phenomena.
Monster
Playwright⊙Kao Tien-Heng / Chang leng
Director⊙Kao Tien-Heng
Actor⊙Chang leng / Tseng Shih-Yi / Sue Yung-Chuen
Lighting Designer⊙Wei Kuang-Cheng
A wandering bard heard a legend of a monster from a little girl. They said this monster would kidnap girl who’s out at night to be his wife. When everyone thought it’s just a story to scare kids, the girl saw the monster in person and fell in love with him.
The girl’s brother firmly opposed their relationship and decided to kill Mont.
The helpless girl asked the bard to save Mont. However, the bard has found a secret when he was setting off to rescue. Now, the bard has to make a tremendous decision……
What is true happiness to this girl?
And what does so-called “happiness” mean to her?
Through this story, the answer might gently grow inside you and me.
West
Director / Playwright⊙Niu Han / Shen Wei
Actor⊙Lu Zetian / Huang Zhuyu
Assistant⊙Luo Lan
The story of West takes place in the year 1900, when the Eight-Nation Alliance captured the city of Peking. Empress Dowager Cixi and the Emperor Guangxu fled from the Forbidden City to Xi’an, alongside with members of the Manchurian royal family and governmental bureaucrats. In a poor town located on the Express’s route to Xi’an, the local governor and his private assistant are deeply concerned about the royal family’s possible stopover in the near future. They have no idea of the exact date of the royal family’s arrival, nor do they know if the foreigners are going to attack their town afterwards. They can thus only pace around their office all day long, face various agonizing legal cases, and wait in deep fear for the call of their destiny.
If Leave
Director⊙Mao Ernan
Playwright⊙Yang Yikun
Actor⊙Peng Luqi / Liu Meichi
Lighting Designer⊙Wang Runjie
Sickness since childhood, Parents felt alarmed.
Entering null gate, ask Buddha to lead.
Rarely sweep palace, lazily chant prayers.
Took off cassock, drove him outside.
A youth monk is leaving back to secular world. Before leaving, what he is thinking about? Facing the bluish white temple, facing his own shadow, what he will talk about?
Keep staying in the living hill or going out to the confusing world? For ten years, never get out the hill gate. But why secular world always appeared in mind?
One single “myself”; one piece of shadow; one ancient song; this is a dialogue of “bringing shadow, making three”.
Take this step; sudden enter into secular life, once just at whim.
The Death of Spring in Vienna
Director / Playwright / Actor⊙Melody X. Zhang
Lighting Design⊙Ray Wang
Scenic Design⊙Lyu Lin
Costume Design⊙Sun Wenyu
Make-up Design⊙Liu Daheng
It’s hard to say whether this is a real story based on a woman has a dream, or this is the hallucination of that woman. Sometimes, we don’t know what is real, and what is hallucination. We don’t know who she is. She is an unknown woman who has a similar life in this world.
In the 1960s, this middle age woman walked into a dark room in the basement. There was an old piano. The woman has kept silence for twenty years. This moment, she started a conversation with piano.
The woman was from Shanghai, and then travelled to Vienna. Her life was nothing except her music dream. But her life was unpredictable. At the end of the play, her throat was broken. Her music dream was over. She was afraid of her voice, never singing again nor speaking.
In this play, the cultural codes are obvious. From eastern to western, something pretends to be true. But the truth is untrue. This is also why dreams can’t always come true. Different cultures represent different ways to live truthfully.
The Villa
Playwright / Director⊙Mark Zhuang
Actor⊙Mark Zhuang / Chelsea Zhang / Pinky Hong
Stage Manager⊙Selena Lu
It is a midnight at Mojia Mountain. A phantom piano melody wafts through the crispy autumn air of the picturesque Wangchuan Villa. The villa was home to 'Mountain Men's Tea Party', the three-day annual literature conference, which just concluded five hours ago. The prominent satire novelist Mr. A is one of the very few attendees who decide to stay for another night. He finds it hard to fall asleep, so he gets up and wanders around the villa with his wife Ms. B, the talented a thriller writer. They run into Miss C, the femme fatale romance novelist suffering from insomnia, in the lounge room. The three chatted to pass the time, and B proposed a storytelling game for all to play…
But it turns out to be a rather dangerous game – as it goes on, not only reality develops a chilling velocity to creep into fiction, but fiction also eerily begins to spill over into reality. What are the motifs and motives of each particular version of fiction? What secrets is each writer trying to veil with the storytelling? What secrets, unknowingly, come to the fore? How will the story end? Where will they end up when the game is over?
Samsara
Produced by STUDIO 4 CHINA
Director / Playwright⊙Hu Xiaoqing
Choreographer⊙Lu Ge
Actor⊙Lu Ge / Yu Tao / Gao Ruijia
Lighting Designer⊙Liu Dongdong
Production Manager⊙Li Li
The world fell to pieces overnight. Three men have survived. They have been given distinctive supernatural powers to remake themselves and to write down the rules and orders for the new world that is about to be born out of their hands. What will their choices be?
In the Very Beginning
Director / Playwright⊙Ren Ming Young
Actor⊙Tingting Liu / Ge Jiang / Ren Ming Young
Lighting Designer⊙Yiyi He
Stage Manager⊙Ulrica Wong
25-year-old Lu Manman spent a sad afternoon alone in a dilapidated amusement park. At dusk, she met two tramps who had magic power. They helped her relive some fragments of her memory. It calmed her down and made her think about her own life, and to regain the confidence and courage.