2nd
得獎名單

Winners

The entries of the 2016 World Sinophone Drama Competition for Young Playwrights were reviewed by 14 judges from North America, Europe and Asia. After four and a half months’ work, three award-winners were finally selected out of more than 120 plays in June 2016. They are: The Bystander Game by Hu Hsuen-yi, I Love My Family by Lin Tu, and Noise by Zhu Yi. In last year’s competition, most of the participating authors found inspirations from history; this year, they seem to care more for the social phenomena of today.

 

The Bystander Game by Hu Hsuen-yi gives a sharp insight on the age of we media, pointing out that “empathy” is unreliable. Disaster and tragedy are unfathomable as if they are the metaphysical remains of the human senses. Moreover, the political correctness of “universal love” is frail and insubstantial. Lin Tu’s I Love My Family takes the common modern theatrical motif of “family conflicts” to “give a comprehensive view on the fated alienation between ‘I’ and ‘my family members,’ through tragedies that take place in ‘the family of the other.’”Zhu Yi’s Noise , a black comedy, sheds light on “the story of a Chinese family in 21st -century New York.” “The plots look real and the lines sound natural, but overall the play exudes a strong sense of absurdity, and even feels a little sad at certain points.” These young playwrights seem to have woven an apocalyptic tapestry of our times.

 

To encourage more young talents to devote to playwriting, this year we launched a new award – Honorable Mention, selecting works that are worth being produced from the non-award winners. This award went to Chen Xiao, who wrote The Greats, Six Feet Under, a story set in a nameless archeological site. The term “great person” is used to ridicule the absurdity of an average Joe who tries to look great by showing off historical knowledge.

 

Katherine Hui-ling Chou, Chairperson, WSDC team.

主連結區

Links

本屆評選結果說明

About the Results

For the second year of WSDC, entries were accepted from December 2015 to February 29, 2016. During this three-month period, we received 179 online registrations, 120 of which submitted soft-copy entries, including 110 Chinese entries and 10 English entries. Most of the Chinese entrants are from mainland China (50%). Submissions from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao made up 41.8% of the entries to this competition, while the rest of the entries came from Malaysia, the United Kingdom and Canada. Bilingual playwrights from Taiwan, mainland China, Malaysia and the United States contributed to the English entries.

Each of the entries has its own strong points. A preliminary screening and an intermediary review were each held for the Chinese and English groups, and 13 Chinese plays and 3 English plays were selected for the final review. Experienced professionals who are fluent in both languages were invited to be the judges of the final screening. Chinese and English plays were reviewed simultaneously, and the top three were chosen. This year, a new “Honorable Mention” award was added to acknowledge the works that, during the license period, will have the opportunity to be produced by existing performing arts groups, with the hope of encouraging more outstanding plays to be staged.

首獎 First Prize
一種旁觀
Author / Hu Xuanyi [China]
The Bystander Game

"Hell is others"

in the social media era.

Hu Xuanyi was born in 1994 in Guangzhoum China. She studied journalism in Sichuan University, and is currently studying in National Taiwan University, Department of Drama and Theater.The Bystander Game would be her first published play.

The major material of this play is the Great Wenchuan Earthquake. This play tries to build a framework for a person who has never experienced any disaster to talk about a disaster. The play also presents this person’s exploration and discussion of the issues as the reconstruction of the disaster area, mental rehabilitation, the buried truth, Internet violence, agenda setting of media, regulation of speech, and the eternal question— “what is life?” Although most of the materials in the play are incidents that actually happened, they still went through a long period of reasoning and literary process and absorbed a few completely fictional stories. Therefore, I think this script uses reality as a source material but is not based on reality. Three major identities of one character, two types of ruins, one memorial and a journey of growth shape into a sort of bystander game, which can also be termed as reconstruction. The three major identities of the leading character are the playwright of this play, an apprentice who’s just been introduced to a new world, and a journalist. The two types of ruins are the ruins of buildings after an earthquake and the emotional wreck of human beings after a disaster. The memorial is the process the leading character will go through, from “not knowing why people commemorate” to “actively commemorate.” The journey of growth is the leading character’s contacting the real world, and getting in touch with what was hidden and covered. As to “what is looked on” and “what was reconstructed,” that will be the main content of the play.

Synopsis provided by the playwright. Translated by Monica Chen.

貳獎 Second Prize
I Love My Family
Author / Lin Tu [China]
中譯名:《我的家庭真可愛》

The Protait of a Mardern Chinese Family

Lin is a playwright/screenwriter, born and grew up in Beijing, China. Lin received the first publication of her prose at age 16, by the most widely circulated teen literature magazine Top Novel. In late teens, she was awarded by “New Concept” National Literature Competition and “The Next • New Author” National Literature Competition. During college, her play HI JOE: A MEMOIR FOR OBLIVION won Best Original Script at “Spirit of Drama” Drama Competition of Peking University. In 2013, her fantasy novellas THE FASHION LEGEND and THE DREAM TELLER were published by Novoland; her first novel THE END was published by Douban Reading. She started her MFA program in Writing for the Screen and Stage in Northwestern University since 2014. Her short play, TIME DIFFERENCE, was chosen for 2015 National MFA Playwrights Festival “Theater Masters”, received productions in Aspen and New York. Her play, BLACK PEOPLE ARE SO COOL received a production in Stage 773, Chicago. She is currently working with Chinese film companies on screenplay development.

The Chinese family of four, Father, Mother, Sister/V, and Brother/Tai, looks like a classic example of happiness. However, the ghostly existence of a nanny, Aunt, who has been taking care of V since she was a baby, becomes the factor that constantly transforms the household into a storm of resentment, anger, and violence. The time when Aunt leaves the family and gets married, V has to face the reality of being trapped in a house full of strangers, but it only gets worse from there: It turns out that Aunt suffers from severe domestic violence from her husband. Over the years, her escalating misery keeps pushing V deeper and deeper into the agony of being powerless, and the hatred towards Mother and Father. And finally, when Aunt commits the crime of killing her husband, V is ultimately shattered and the household sinks into utter tragedy. Tai, the innocent brother who has witnessed everything, will be the story-teller and leads us through the years of struggles of the family, which he loves, from the bottom of his heart.

Synopsis provided by the playwright. Translated by Monica Chen.

參獎 Third Prize
Noise
Author / Zhu Yi [China]
中譯名:《雜音》

It's all just part of the deal.

ZHU Yi is a New York-based playwright and screenwriter, born and raised in China. She received her MFA in playwriting from Columbia University. She is a 2012-2013 Emerging Artist Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop, a Youngblood alumni at Ensemble Studio Theatre, a member of Dramatists Guild of America, and an adjunct lecturer at Nanjing University, China. She received Shanghai Drama Valley’s 2015 Outstanding Playwright of the Year Award, and the First Prize at 2015 World Sinophone Drama Competition. She is a member of the Royal Court Theatre’s 2016-2018 International Playwriting Workshop, and Ibsen International’s “New Text, New Stage” Project.

An Ivy League degree in art and an apartment in Manhattan – Like many new upper-middle-class Chinese families, Mr. and Mrs. Li are proud to give their only daughter a life they could only dream of, until... they realize the new life is turning her into a dangerous stranger.

Noise* is a dark comedy that features a Chinese family’s home buying journey in New York in winter 2015, a time of increased real estate property ownership by overseas Chinese and a sharp decline in the value of the RMB against the US dollar. It reveals the ideological conflicts between the East and the West in contemporary society by tracking a little stream of the global cash flow.

*The playwright had updated the title of this play as A Deal.

Synopsis provided by the playwright. Translated by Wei-ming Liu.

Mandarin version of the play (titled “Noise 雜音”) was staged by Nanjing University Art Master Performance Group in associated with Ibsen International, directed by Lu Xiaoping. Performances started in September 2017 in Nanjing, and is expected to tour in Shanghai and Guangzhou later this year.

A Deal will start it’s limited run in Off Boardway by November 2017 by Urban Stages. Directed by John Giampietro, the show will also star Taiwanese actress Lin Wei Yi. 
Tickets and more details available at http://urbanstages.org  

 

評審委員

Jury
image description Shih-wei Wu

Graduated from the Institute of Theater Arts, National Taipei University of the Arts, a senior theater creator. His works have won the Golden Bell Award for Best Screenplay, the First Prize at the Taipei Film Festival, and the "Everyone's Satisfaction Award" at the Fringe Festival. Adjunct lecturer in the Department of Drama, University of the Arts, and currently an assistant professor in the Department of Performing Arts and Fashion Management at Taipei University of Ocean Science and Technology. He is an outstanding artist who can serve as a director, screenwriter, actor, producer, etc. in various positions.

image description Shan-lu Yu

Lecturer, Department of Theatre Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts

First Review, Chinese Plays

image description Lu-sheng Cao

[Final Review, Chinese and English Plays]

Professor in the Shanghai Theatre Academy and vice editor-in-chief of Theatre Arts . Author of Post-modern Theatre and translator of Environmental Theatre and Theatrical Experiences (戲劇經驗). Also author of stage plays such as Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (莊周戲妻), Who Killed the King (誰殺了國王), 1993 (九三年), As Dusts Settle (塵埃落定), Sister Yuqing (玉卿嫂), The Story of Chunqin (春琴傳) and Maste Hungyi (弘一法師). Winner of the 2005 National Stage Art Engineering Project’s Outstanding Stage Play Award.

 
image description Austin Mang-Chao Wang / CEO of Taipei Performing Arts Center

[Final Review, Chinese and English Plays]

Austin graduated from Master of Fine Arts in Stage and Lighting Design, University of Southern California, USA. Worked as Senior Production Manager and Stage Designer for Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, works like Moon Water, Songs of the
Wanderers. And He has worked with other troupes as well, such as Performance Workshop, Ping-Fong Acting Troupe, Contemporary Legend Theatre, and Ming Hwa Yuan Arts & Cultural Group as stage and lighting designer or technical director for their productions. Selected honors and awards: National Award of Arts presented by the National Culture and Arts Foundation (2014); chief stage designer for the opening/closing ceremony of Taipei Deaflympics (2009); jury member of Prague Quadrennial and the convener of Taiwan team, with the Taiwan Hall project winning the Gold Medal for Best Use of Technology (2007); and Belvedere International Achievement Award presented at the Poland Presidential Palace in Warsaw (2004). From 2016 to March 2021, he was the director of Taipei Performing Arts Center, and currently the CEO of Taipei Performing Arts Center.

image description LI Huan-Hsiung

[Second Review, Chinese Plays]

Li is currently Artistic Director at Mr.Wing Theatre Company, as well as Associate Professor Rank Specialist and Director at the Graduate Institute of Performing Arts, Tunghai University. As a founding member of the Rive-Gauche Theatre Group and Creative Society Theatre Company, Li made his name as early as the Avant-garde Theatre Movement of 1980s Taiwan and became one of the most active and influential figure in contemporary Taiwan theatre. Later in 1990s, Li expanded his career into the category of musicals, operas and multimedia stage productions, and becoming one of the most presenting theatre director in Taiwan.

Li’s recent directing works include: Giacomo Puccini's Turandot (Deutsch oper am Rhein/National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts-Weiwuying, 2015-19). Jonathan Dove's Monster in the maze (National Taichung Theatre, 2016). Mr.Wing Theatre Company's The Rainbow of Time: a musical; Turn Left, Turn Right: a musical ; Jimmy’s Subway:a musical; The Cherry Orchard 2047; Lutz Hubner's the company thanks (featured in TIFA); Starlight Theatre; Taipei Dad/New York Mom (featured in TIFA). Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle, Richard Strauss’s Elektra, Richard Wagner’s Parsifal and On the Road with the NSO.

image description John B. Weinstein

John B. Weinstein is Dean of the Early Colleges at Bard College, and Associate Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.  A scholar and translator who publishes on Republican period mainland theatre and contemporary Taiwan theatre, he served as president of the Association for Asian Performance from 2006 to 2011.  He is the editor and co-translator of Voices of Taiwanese Women: Three Contemporary Plays (Cornell East Asia Series, 2015).  He has directed plays in both English and Chinese in the U.S. and Taiwan.   

[First and Second Review, English Plays]

image description Pippin Parker

Pippin Parker became director of School of Drama in 2011 after serving as chair of the division’s Playwriting department since 2006. As Playwriting chair, Parker launched programs such as the New Voices MFA Thesis Festival and the Artist-in-Residence series. In addition to his academic experience, Parker is a noted professional playwright and director, once directed “Betrayed”, which won the Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Play. Pippin is founding member and former Artistic Director of Naked Angels theater company in New York City, where he co-conceived the group’s long-running reading series.

First and Second Review, English Plays

image description Wei-jan Chi

Writer and research scholar specializing in western contemporary theatre. Holds a doctoral degree in British and American literature from the University of Iowa, United States. Full-time professor in the Department of Drama and Theatre, National Taiwan University. Author of stage plays such as Once upon a Rainy Night , The Mahjong Game and Playing the Violin ; prose such as Tonight We Play and Misunderstanding Shakespeare ; novel Private Eyes ; and academic writings Narrating Modern Drama . Awardee of the 17th National Culture and Arts Award in 2013.

Final Review

image description Katherine Hui-Ling Chou

[Final Review, Chinese and English Plays]

Distinguished Professor of Eng. Dept., National Central Univ., Taiwan; project director of Performance Center at NCU; founder of ETI, a digital archive of Taiwan’s modern theatre since 1985; Awardee of NCU Outstanding Research, 2005, 2009-14, 2020; Playwright/director of Creative Society Theatre Troupe since 1997.

After receiving her PhD of Performance Studies at NYU, USA, Katherine Hui-Ling Chou co-founded Creative Society Theatre Troupe in Taipei, and has been the troupe’s core member, director and playwright since 1997. Her artistic credits include: The Apocalypse of Fudingjin (playwright/director, Wei Wu Ying National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, 2020), Jian Ji: A Just Life (playwright, Grand Opening of Wei Wu Ying, National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, 2018); President’s Invitation (director of the 3.0 edition, MFA Theatre Troupe of Nanjing Univ. China, 2015~); One Hundred Years on Stage (co-playwright, premiered in 2011); Have Wok, Will Travel (playwright/director, Creative Society, CS, premiered in 2011); He Is My Wife, He Is My Mother (playwright/director, CS, 2009, 2010, 2017, 2018); Dreams on Manuscript (playwright, 2009), to be AND not to be (playwright/director, CS, 2006-2008); Reel Murder (director, CS, 2005), Click, My Baby (playwright/director, CS, 2004), Dejavu (director, CS, 2003, 2006), Memory Album (playwright/director, CS, 2002); I Want You, I Want You Not (playwright/director, CS, 2000).

She is also the author of Performing China: Actresses, Visual Politics and Performance Culture, 1910s-1945, and numerous refereed journal articles and chapters of refereed books edited by Richard Schechner (MIT,USA), David Der-wei Wang (Harvard U. Press, USA), Ru-ru Li (Palgrave,UK), Steve Siyuan Liu (Routledge, Canada), etc. Her current research focus is on performing arts in creative industry, and digital theatre/performance. She initiated the World Sinophone Drama Competition for the Young Playwrights in 2015 and has since then chaired the Competition.

image description Steve Ansell

Steve Ansell is the Artistic Director at stage@leeds, (University of Leeds, UK). An Artistic Director, teacher, writer and musician with over twenty five years experience Steve is also the founder of Screaming Media Productions and Gi60 (the world’s only international one minute theatre festival) and is currently an associate artist at The Viaduct Theatre Halifax, UK. Steve has directed work in the UK and US including the premiere of Dennis Kelly’s DNA at the National Theatre in London. Steve is the author of Tiny Plays: A Practical Guide to One Minute Theatre (Routledge 2017) and is currently working on a spoken word adaptation of Tang Xianzu’s ‘Nanke Ji’ entitled DREAMING Under the Southern Bough which will tour the UK and China in Autumn 2016.

[First and Second Review, English Plays]

image description Shih-Lung LO

[First Review, Chinese Plays]

Shih-Lung Lo graduated from National Taiwan University with an MA in Theatre Studies, and he received his Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, France. From 2012 to 2017, he taught Chinese language and literature in Paris Diderot University and Paul Valéry University in France. In 2017 he joined the faculty of National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Now he is Associate Professor of the Department of Chinese Literature, and Director of Chinese Language Center of National Tsing Hua University. His Ph.D. dissertation La Chine sur la scene française au XIX e siècle was published in 2015 under the sponsorship of Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. Besides academic writings, he has translated several French classical and contemporary plays, including Derniers remords avant l’oubli and Juste la fin du monde of Jean-Luc Lagarce, Caligula of Albert Camus, La Demande d’emploi of Michel Vinaver, Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse of Charles-Simon Favart, and Un verre d’eau of Eugène Scribe. He is also a regular contributor to Stage and Screen Reviews published by Nanjing University. From 2021 on, he participates in the production team of IC Broadcasting for the program “Open the Wardrobe: Stories Behind the Scenes.”

image description Yen-ling Hsu

Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre Arts, Chinese Culture University. Director and actor in theatre
First Review, Chinese Plays

image description Wei-Ger TONG

[Second Review, Chinese Plays]

(Photo: 汪正翔)

image description Shih-Hue Tu

Assistant Professor and Chair, Department of Performing Arts, Shu-Te University.

[Second Review, Chinese Plays]

評審審查會議記錄

Review Conference Minutes