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 Ji,the 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 crazy,Xuniang 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.