Young Theatre Artist's Competition

The Young Theatre Artist’s Competition is a major component of the Wuzhen Festival. Eighteen 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 consist of luminaries and masters of the art. On the final day of the Festival, the jury members will choose a Best Play, which comes with a cash prize and give a Special Prize for the Most Outstanding Artist, which comes with a cash prize.

The purpose of the competition is part of the vision of the Festival Director: to establish a platform for the development of original theatre works by promising young artists. This platform is for passionate and potential young playwrights and performers to present themselves, learn from world theatre masters, and broaden their horizons.

This year, the Young Theatre Artist’s Competition of the 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 the competition will be open to young theatre artists from all over the world.

With a friendly greeting, Wuzhen welcomes passionate young theatre artists and theatre enthusiasts from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The Young Theatre Artist’s Competition is a most striking “engine” of the annual Wuzhen Festival. Many people take part in this activity to discuss love and life, various facets of their creativity, and their unique perspectives. The Young Theatre Artist’s Competition also gives a panel of helpful jurors a chance to share their knowledge of the theatrical arts. Audiences have come to wait expectantly for the solutions to some of the playful puzzles we propose for the participating artists. As a platform for learning, practicing, interacting and showing, this gathering flourishes, getting better every year. Being heroic does not necessarily mean being victorious, and what we really pursue is creativity and excellence, rather than coveting or claiming a prize. In fact, becoming acquainted itself is a kind of fate. The path to the art of theatre is long, and along the way we should explore the dramatic sphere in high spirits. I wish you all sweet dreams in this water town—and may this Competition be a wonderful success!”

Tian Qinxin,

Artistic Director of Wuzhen Theatre Festival





Introduction of the Young Theatre Artist’s Competition 2017



Running Away From Home

Playwright/Director/Performer: Wang Zi

Producer: Pan Yue

Poster Designer: Zhang Lai

Photographer: Yeluz, AnselGuan


A naughty boy encounters a dilemma, overwhelming at his age, as the strict education his father gives him becomes an obstacle to their communication. His fear of his father forces the boy to leave home. He begins to dream that he can conquer the wider world. However, the journey does not go as smoothly as it should have. A sudden downpour not only washes away his confidence in his disguise, both metaphorically and physically, but also frightens away the monster growing in his heart.

This play is a monodrama that combines elements of mime, vocal imitation and clowning to narrate a rich story with nearly no speech. Director Wang Zi is the only actor and playwright of the show; his cartoon-like, exaggerated style of performance, with improvised interactions, is bound to be hilarious.




One and a Quarter

Playwright: Zhang Bin

Director: Du Hua

Performers: Du Hua, Hui Bowen, Jiang Pan, Liu Peitong

Staff Director: Hou Dawei

Artistic Adviser: Fan Ni, Zhao Xu


A man, who works on a chicken farm has encountered a woman who claims she is the man’s lover and tells him the story of their love again and again. However, it doesn’t bring up any memories for him. The woman has been telling him this story for 30years. Just as he starts to believe her, an accident occurs...




Selection

Scripter writer: Tengbo Wu   Jie Hao(Luhan Zhang  Ailin Yi  First draft)

Director/Choreography: Tengbo Wu  Jie Hao
Performer:Tengbo Wu  Jie Hao  Zeyi Sun
Live play:Xinyu Xing
Stage supervision: Yixin Yang
 Lighting designer:Yu Wang
Costume designer:Jinjin Li
Production propretty masers:Yi Zhang
Poster designer:Weinan Wu
Brochure designer:Junyi Lv


It is a great opportunity for you to be the chosen one. Whether you want to make a decision or not, you are going to make one—to take the opportunity or just quit. As time goes by, when the last moment comes, you have to make a choice anyway, even if you have done nothing.

If one wants to be the chosen one and a god living in the earthly world, it is inevitable that you will complete the ritual before the next full eclipse. Whether you are becoming an icon to receive the faithful worship of the masses, or just being yourself, depends on whether you want to abandon your nature as a human being or be in control of your own life. Most of us are last-minute people.

We tend to wait to make up our minds till the last moment. But tonight when the full eclipse finally occurs, he will witness the outcome. When the ritual is completed, he decides to be the chosen one. But, is it a good thing? No one knows, including himself.




Breaking the Dome

Playwright: Li Ziyi

Directors: Zhang Wenqing, Tang Zhihui

Performers: Li Ziyi, Tang Xu

Lighting/Sound: Zhang Qingyu

In this play, a story unfolds between a master and his disciple. Standing in their world for generations, there has been a gigantic umbrella. It blocks the actual sky, keeping people from seeing the wax and wane of the moon, which is bringing bad luck. But the young disciple has a keen interest in finding the truth hidden behind the big lie. In reply to the disciple’s entreaty, the master decides to take him to see the giant umbrella. But because the master is old and weak, only the disciple can climb up and break through the umbrella. Unexpectedly, when he is on the path of breaking through the umbrella, he is not aware of the fact that he is stepping into the circle of life.




Live Long and Prosper

Playwright: CHANG Tun-Chih

Director: CHENG Ching-Yuan

Performers: HSU Chung-Hsuan, CHANG Tun-Chih, CHENG Ching-Yuan

Sound Designer: YANG Yi-Hsiu

Lighting Designer: CHEN Ta-Tsan


This is the story of creation in 2017.

Once upon a time, God said: “Let there be light,” and there was light. Nowadays, humans pay for what they want at the sales counter.

The most famous runner in China, KUA FU, who chases the sun from the beginning of the story, is still running in the story. However, the shining sun is not hanging high up in the sky anymore. It has been broken into pieces and turned into different commodities. Thus, the sun chasing story is redefined.

Buying, shopping, or purchasing has become the new journey. Picking up the pieces of the sun has created a brand-new life, full of happiness and satisfaction. However, the race gets harder because the sun is not necessarily a friend this time. The story is not going to end while the sun still shines brightly.



Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Playwright: Wu Shuang

Director: Hu Zhihai

Performers: Meng Jing, He Ting, Huang Qinlin


Mrs. Brown’s husband died early. She lives alone in the mountains, recalling that she was in this cabin in her youth and finding that the past is actually happening again. She sees herself from the past, as Susan Green, getting lost before her wedding ceremony begins. As Mrs. Brown, she wants to persuade her younger self not to enter into the marriage, which has filled her life with agony. However, young Susan doesn't believe her. After a number of failed attempts, Mrs. Brown intends to kill young Susan.

At that very moment, someone’s knock on the door interrupts Mrs. Brown. A 14-year-old girl comes into the cabin. The snow stops, and the moon comes out. Then the girl's companion arrives. Mrs. Brown gives her dagger to the girl, who is about to go down the mountain. It occurs to Mrs. Brown that the very same things happened 10 years ago, in the same cabin. Then she gives the girl her umbrella and tells her that it may snow later.




A Turtle Who Lost its Way

Playwright: Xi Nan, Chen Xingling

Director: Xi Nan

Performers: Shi Jiani, Yang Zheng, Xi Nan

Stage Designer: Xi Nan

Costumes/Makeup: Qiu Yihua

Stage Manager: Wang Shenwang, Pan Yining

Assistant Director: Pan Yining

Graphic Designer: Wang Shenwang

Lighting Designer: Bei Wen, Li Bowen

Photography& Media: Xi Mengjie


This is a short play with a prelude and three acts. The heroine, Lu Mi, and the hero, Jin Zheng, are a couple. Mi is a fourth year student in liberal arts at a university in China, while Zheng is a graduate student in Civil Engineering, studying in the United States.

Three years ago, they bought a pair of turtles named "Dawn" and "Dusk”.These two turtles were the symbol of their love. Zheng went to the United States with "Dusk."From then on, they were separated, with one in the East and the other in the West; when it was dusk for one of them, it was dawn for the other.

They promised each other they would start a new life after Zheng graduated. But there was always something unexpected. Zheng, who was busy with his studies and about to graduate, decided to stay in the United States and tried to persuade Mi to come live with him, but Mi wouldn’t agree to it.

Those in a long distance relationship confront the most practical life choice. Will today’s "post‘90s" be able to fight against the challenge of reality? Will this new generation be able to deal with their relationship and the future? How will they face all these problems?



The New Moon

Playwright/Director/Performers: Gao Jie, Liu Xiao

Lighting/Stage Designer: Gao Jie

Photographer: Pan Tiantian

Poster Designer: Li Yujin

Music: Frère Jacques Fantasy

Voiceover: Gao Jie

The relationship between a man and a woman is like the waxing and waning of the moon.

At the beginning of the story, a man and a woman meet by chance in a bar under the moonlight. How do two perfect strangers connect so intimately over the course of a single meeting? What is that special thing that creates such a strong bond between two people? Some call it destiny; some call it love. Or is it just our urge to be completed, misled by a false idea?

This is also a theatrical attempt at Meyerhold’s Biomechanics, exploring the possibilities in and between bodies in an empty space.




Full

Playwright/Director: Yuan Shuo

Performers: Long Yizhu, Yang Zhengxi, Zhang Xinyu

During three walks at night, between two girls in striped clothes, one slowly builds a relationship that eventually ends in nothing. This is a story that has nothing. Everything is nothing, and everything will be different depending on how you feel.



To Kill a Rabbit

Playwrights: BaiHuiyuan, Tuo Lu, Shan Dandan

Director: Shan Dandan

Performers: Chen Jingjing, Liang Zhongliang

Poster Designer: He Xin

Photographer: Li Bo

Producer: Fontainebleau

A rainstorm hit Beijing on July 21, 2012 when Wu Gang and Rabbit’s story begins, with a red umbrella. Since then, Wu has always come to Rabbit’s home to spend the night with the excuse of “taking the umbrella.”

But tonight, Wu is ready to really take back his umbrella, as his wife Chang’e has become aware of his affair with Rabbit. Each of the three has to make a new choice.

How will the pink Rabbit girl celebrate her dark birthday? At whom will the fruit knife be pointed?

Before sunrise, when the sun begins to glow though the darkness, they should say goodbye to each other. Such an intense race against time will take place here, Room 1712, “MOON HOME Community.”




It Goes Without Saying

Playwright: Liu Siyuan

Director: Gong Chen

Performers: Gong Chen

Sound: Huang Zhecheng

Stage Manager: Zhang Weihao

Artistic Adviser: Pan Tingting


This play adheres to the topic of “Luminosity,” developing the story with the core props of “moon, umbrella and knife,” to show uncontrollability, people’s lack of self- awareness and their different thoughts in different situations.

A wealthy man, Wei Jiaming, decides to stop his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. On the way, his private plane crashes, the parachute fails to open, he fails to find the parachutist’s self-help knife, he realizes there are only 25 seconds left of his life.

In these 25 seconds, he thinks about his life, not only examining the gains and losses of his life choices, and even life and death, but also his own obsessions. At the moment of “complete enlightenment,” he feels he has already touched the moon, and touched the real meaning of the universe.

As he is calmly, even joyfully, waiting to enter the next world, the missing parachutist’s knife unexpectedly appears. At this moment, Wei Jiaming decides to act in complete opposition to the enlightenment he just received.



Xin Tai

Playwright: Zhao Meina

Director: Zhao Jia

Performers: Wang Zijin, Wang Shuya, Zhang Qichao, Wu Jingting, Zhao Jia

Costume Designer: Zhang Dawei


This play is based on the stories The New Terrace and Two Youths in a Boat in The Book of Songs. The princess of Qi state was engaged to Jithe prince of Wei state, but was forced to marry Ji’s father, the King of Wei before her wedding with her fiancé, and became Lady Xuanjiang. After several years, Xuanjiang’s two sons, Shou and Shuo, have grown up. Shuo frames Ji, making the king of Wei so angry that he wants to kill Ji. The King appoints Ji as an ambassador to visit Qi state, but secretly sends assassin to murder Ji. Shou learns the wicked plot and chases Ji overnight to warn him of the assassination, but Ji refuses to run away. Shou makes Ji drunk and fall asleep, then disguises himself as Ji. When Ji wakes up, he chases to catch up with Shou, only to find out that Shou has been assassinated. Ji expose his true identity to the assassin and gets killed as well.

In this play, the re-interpreted story is given a new narrative structure. Xuanjiang can’t fall asleep until dawn, but when she receives the news that both Shou and Ji are dead, she faints. Unconscious, she is incarnated into two bodies that belong to the past and present respectively. The innocent princess and the worn lady together review her life experience in the past years, in the same time and space, and reexamine her heart and life. When day breaks, she wakes up. Being controlled by fate, she realizes that her only choice is to sadly live on.




Fade Away

Playwright/Director/Producer: Yang Zhefen

Performers: Huang Xiatong, Zhou zhou, Zhong Shiyu, Wang Xi


Teenage girls are supposed to have some of the best moments of their lives. They are in their golden age. However, there are two girls who are always over-sensitive, so fragile and despairing that they put on masks everyday and no one can truly peer into their hearts. Adults treat them like naive kids. The adults have great expectations of these adolescents, but they never, ever have a real conversation with the youngsters or know their inner worlds. Youngsters prefer to stay in their own world, which is cold and unmerciful. Even though this group of young people is quite pessimistic, they still try very hard to look on the bright side of their lives. Thus, they are in a great dilemma themselves. They become more and more silent, but the silence will lead to a tremendous change…

Dear audience, have you ever had the same experience? Samaritans, who has been your salvation




Unborn

Playwright/Director: Huang Ruishuo

Performers: Shen Yuzhe, Li Anqi, Yang Duoduo

Lighting: Ding Yingcheng

Makeup: Xiao Na

Stage Manager: Chen Xingyu

Producer: Annie

Choreographer: Kang Ning, Tian Ran

A medical intern Shi Yue strays into the city of Yingcheng after he commits suicide. There, he meets a girl who is identified only by the number 314. She believes that there are some connections between them even though they didn’t know each other. Hearing that the cause of death must be known before reincarnation, Shi Yue decides to help “314” find out the truth about her death. Gradually, as the relationship between them becomes clearer, after long struggle and dispute, the hidden truth behind their deaths emerges, sinking them both into silence. This is a story of life and death rather than love and romance.




The Dream of Madam Xu

Playwright: Gao Yinan

Director: Zhang Boda

Performers: Gao Yinan, Yang Bin, Liu Enqi

Assistant Director: Wu Yao

Artistic Adviser: Wang Sanyang

Xuniang was a courtesan who is now middle-aged. On August15, the night of a full moon, a stranger chooses Xuniang in spite of her age. Xuniang becomes pregnant. It is widely rumored that the Emperor himself has just been to this brothel, and that he especially visits there on nights when there is a full moon. So Xuniang believes that her baby is the Emperor’s child. Even though everyone says she is crazyXuniang still gives birth to her child on a rainy day, dreaming of being an empress one day. The child is born dumb. Xuniang goes everywhere to find a cure for her child. In the end, she finds Blind Chen, believed by everyone to be psychic. Chen fools Xuniang by telling her that her child will be able to speak if she throws herself off the roof. She believes it and begins to climb...



Mom, Moon

Playwright/Director: Zhang Yan

Performers: Li Zihan, Yue Yuan

Producer/Stage Manager: Liu Qingzhuo

The moon, which reflects the secret emotions in our hearts, represents the feminine, woman and mother. The moon influences the tides and also changes the human body. Mom, Moon gives us a dialogue between a mother and a daughter. A daughter may have had thousands of questions about the world since the day she was born. However, there are some words difficult to speak, and some curiosities hard to express.

Are you a woman?”

Yes. I am now.”

Let’s have a talk then.”




Illusion

Director: Li Ketan

Performers: Yang Zhen, Liu Yunting, Zhao Jiahao, Xiao Heng

This play is based on four Chinese fables: “Chuang Chou Dreams a Butterfly,” “Kua Fu Races with the Sun,” “Lord Ye’s Love of Dragons” and “A Pipe Dream.”

As the world is full of illusion, so all the perplexities of men can be regarded as “unawareness”. According to Chuang Tzu, “Little awareness comes from small dreams; large awareness comes from big dreams,” suggesting that the most profound awareness can be found in the deepest illusion.

No wonder clarity of the heart is more important than clarity of the eyes. Clarity of heart is “awareness,” which means we can rid ourselves of illusion with a clear heart, to see the essence of the world.

Let’s hope when our eyes are closed, the heart is awake.





A Bright Summer Night

Playwright: Tian Hongyi

Director: Xun Yuying

Performers: Xia Ye, Zhou Wenbiao

Poster Designer: Xun Yuying

This play unfolds with the story between a young couple whose lives are about to undergo a series of great changes. The husband is blessed, or shall we say, cursed with the unique ability to accurately predict how much time is left in his relationship with another person. But his wife doesn’t know this. After an unexpected altercation, the husband finally decides to be honest and tell his wife the truth. Little does she know, everything is just beginning on this bright summer night.