New China Festival:
Staged Play Readings from the Chinese Speaking World

WHO

Silk Road Rising

WHEN

08/04/2018 – 08/19/2018

WHERE

The Historic Chicago Temple Building

Chicago

**ConFest 2018: Chicago Partner Event**
Use code CAATA at checkout for $5 discounted tickets

Sat/Sun August 4/5: Speaking as Then
Sat/Sun August 11/12: Dialogue & Rebuttal
Sat/Sun August 18/19: Sand on a Distant Star

Curator: David Henry Hwang
Lead Director: Helen Young

Staged readings of three plays translated from Chinese to English that highlight the work of contemporary playwrights from the Chinese speaking world. Stylistically and aesthetically diverse, the featured plays examine a Chinese society rife with tensions between tradition and accelerating change, consumerism and communism, and authoritarianism and personal freedom. New China Festival will also include a panel discussion about the state of theatre in the Chinese speaking world and the insights American audiences can gain from Chinese plays.

Sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts

Speaking as Then
by Ruoxin Xu

Part one of our New China Festival, a collection of staged readings that highlight the work of contemporary playwrights from the Chinese speaking world. Stylistically and aesthetically diverse, the featured plays examine a Chinese society rife with tensions between tradition and accelerating change, consumerism and communism, and authoritarianism and personal freedom.

Dialogue & Rebuttal
by Gao Xingjian, translated by Gilbert C.F. Fong

Part two of our New China Festival, a collection of staged readings that highlight the work of contemporary playwrights from the Chinese speaking world. Stylistically and aesthetically diverse, the featured plays examine a Chinese society rife with tensions between tradition and accelerating change, consumerism and communism, and authoritarianism and personal freedom.

Sand on a Distant Star
by Stan Lai

Part three of our New China Festival, a collection of staged readings that highlight the work of contemporary playwrights from the Chinese speaking world. Stylistically and aesthetically diverse, the featured plays examine a Chinese society rife with tensions between tradition and accelerating change, consumerism and communism, and authoritarianism and personal freedom.