【2022乌镇戏剧节青年竞演单元入围公告】

第九届乌镇戏剧节青年竞演单元自启动报名以来，获得广大青年戏剧人的热情响应，至2022年9月25日报名截止，乌镇戏剧节组委会共收到541份报名参赛作品，其中优秀之作众多。经乌镇戏剧节评委会严格甄选，最终18部剧目入围，3部备选。现名单公布如下：

The Emerging Theatre Artists 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 the Best Play, which comes with a cash prize, and give a Special Prize for the Most Outstanding Artist, which also comes with a cash prize.

The purpose of the competition is a part of the vision of the Festival Director: to establish a platform on which promising young artists can develop original theatre works. 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 Emerging Theatre Artists 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.

The theme of the 2022 Festival is "Abundance". The three required elements are: a wine bottle, nothing, and a remote control.

Almost without knowing, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival has entered its ninth year. I remember that early on, I already had the impulse to organize a youth theatre festival. Teaching in the university, I had a lot of ideas about arts education that couldn’t be realized in traditional institutions, so I intended to hide in my beloved town and build my dreams with my young friends. Today, the dream is truly realized, and it has become the most internationally influential theatre event in the Chinese-speaking world. With the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, I always feel lucky, so I am grateful for that seed of passion I had when I was young. Over these years, I’ve witnessed the seed taking root, sprouting, blossoming, and bearing fruit. This seed is you, my young friends. I always say I hope I myself have grown from just a playful boy into a seed of idealism. Here, I also hope that all young people can always have faith in idealism, hold up the banner of idealism, believe in dreams, believe in miracles, believe that the theatre can change people’s lives, can change not just you but the world, and not only what you can see but also something you have never even imagined. And last but not least, I want to say the words I want to say every year: Long live the youth!

— Huang Lei

Co-founder and Producing Director

A Man in The Theatre

Director / Playwright：Yingjie Liu

Performers：Jiajun Wang / Yingjie Liu

Assistant director / Stage manager：Meiya Yang

Art designer：Qile Wang

Producer：Siyu Li

Ha,ha.

I am the drama ”A Man in The Theatre” itself. Well, what I just said is quite complicated to explain! Briefly, I contained everything in this drama.

He is Liu Hailong, My dramatis personae, Liu Hailong. Under my construction, “A Man in The Theatre” now begins: A drama was suddenly cancelled just one minutes before the opening, All the audience left but only Liu Hailong still refuse to leave. At that time , I said I will turn off the lights if you don’t go. He didn’t give me a glimpse and still refused to leave. He kept refusing to leave, He just refuse to leave. He refused me angrilyyyyyyyy! He turned around and beat a mosquito, thus he refuse to leave . He always refused to leave. He became a mosquito, he is flying around me while making a sound of “KUANG QI” And , refusing to leave…

  *********. What a boring drama! Even , something just can’t being regard as a drama.

It's all right

Director / Playwright：Jiagen Ying

Assistant Director：Why

Performers：Neo / Enola

In don't know which region which province, belongs to a connecting city and town looks good, two mental outlook good old man, is going to sow a nice evening, in the "control" from the battlefield, a debacle of the old man quickly "dream", but was defeated by the old lady. Then in the garden what kind of point and a significant differences of opinion "one hundred plan", slim figured but wild embodied in the old lady out of thin air, were used respectively to play hard to get, a diversion such classic tactics all-round, multi-dimensional, large depth of opponents helpless old man to fight dimension reduction, the old man urinate on the spot, drinking with words: "sowing corn!" The two finally reached an agreement, shook hands, and went through a normal day in their lives.

This drama shows the audience a strong, strong, profound, with Chinese characteristics of love, this love today, in the past and every day in the future.

Moonlight Shine Shine

Director：Mili

Performers：Mili / Yingzhou Huang / Khaki Liang / Zepeng Tan

Stage manager：Yanfei Ren

This story of a zombie and a Taoist priest is also a story about "fear".

Through a live broadcast, the current relationship between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" is expressed. Thus, thinking, integrating the current various social phenomena, exposing the other side of people and zombies.

In the shadow of the fear, how will we treat the fear?

Is all the behavior out of "fear", are excusable?

"Don't be kidding, scare you."

Because it is terrible, so sad.

Dot

Director：Yingkang Liu

Playwrights：Tianci Zheng / Yingkang Liu

Performers：Tianci Zheng / Yani Xie

Music designer：Xi Chen

Originally, he had a good life, but suddenly he found himself living with a bug. But why did he marry a bug? Why did not he find out it? If they got married, what is he? A lot of doubts exist, but the most deadly problem is that the bug wants to eat him now! He is done! He will be eaten before he has enjoyed his life. The bug even said to him quite proudly, "Eating you is to give you a baby, a cute little bug!"

Oh, my God! Who wants a bug baby?

It's ridiculous. He thinks to himself that he should not die, at least not in this way. There is no point in ending his life so hastily. He has to escape! Escape from this ridiculous world and find the meaning that should exist. But, how to escape? Escape to where? Is there something he's looking for? How can his own life become like this?

Closed Circuit Television

Playwright / Director：Yiying Tian

Performers：Elizabeth / Darcine Dai / Weiyi Li

Post designer / Prop fabrication：Yifei Song

Stage assistant：Haoyu Liu

Do you have memories that you play over and over again, memories that you want to erase or change, and memories that you try to recall at the first moment of each day?

The heroine in this story has such an unforgettable painful memory but has been shown a record with slightly different facts. In the struggle of repetition or pause, facing doubts from others and herself, how should she face the memory, and how could she let go of the memory?

Structure

Director：Seven

Assistant director：Fang Yi Ran

Playwright：Jin Ke Er

Stage manager：Jin Ge

Performance director：Wang Jun Dong

Performers：Seven / Boyu Ding / Yunqian Chen / Jingmei Yao

Music designer：Zhile Gong

Human beings live in groups but want to remain independent. While questing for liberty, we also yearn for companionship. Lingering between contradictions, we are so greedy that we are willing to seek balance but gain nothing eventually. Are all connections between human beings and the external world invariably affected by an “indescribable” power? Do right or wrong, truth, survival, love, and ego have their own tracks of operating? Xiao Yue and Wen, two seemingly ordinary but special people, are consciously trapped in the siege of modern society and look for each other.

The Unborn

Playwright / Director：Jeffrey Wu

Performers：Sylvia Yuan / Eugene You

Audio crew：Lareina Jiang

Stage manager：Sibyl He

Life is precious, but why? Are women blessed with the power to create, or cursed with the responsibilities of birth? What relation on earth exists between life and women? To answer these questions, we conceive a pair of siblings, consisting of a ghost brother who with a longing for living, and a pregnant sister who is searching for the meaning of the female identity. They share a great affection for each other and try their best to make the other happy. However, the decision born of love is fated to meet a cruel ending.

We hope this story will make audiences rethink the concepts of ‘life’, ‘women’, ‘devotion’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘value’, and ‘significance’, so that these words are no longer pale, but fresh and alive and let them view the world vividly again.

Her Last Six Eggs

Playwright / Director：Audrey Heye

Co-Playwright：Fu Chong

Performer：Lu Shan

Lighting Designer：Li Wei

Music Designer：Joy Zhang

Multimedia Designer：Zhang Liguo

Oil Painting Artist：Damao

Technology director：Zhiyong

Xiao Qing was taken away by the police for investigation on her 35th birthday because she was involved in a murder case.  This inquiry process dates back to six months prior to her birthday. Due to an unusually difficult menstruation, Xiao Qing unexpectedly learned that she had premature ovarian failure, but also that she had only six eggs left in her body for the remainder of her life. In order to prevent any of her precious eggs developing into a baby before the authorized deadline, she faced up to and barely overcame having a variety of emotional stories thrown at her, finally withdrawing from such depressing circumstances before the time limit. This ultimately became the best birthday gift she had ever experienced.

The original factors that inspired this play emerged from China's first case of a single woman trying to freeze her own eggs. From this case a phenomenon developed as seen through a woman who had not put ‘becoming a mother’ on her life list, and she was constantly drawn away by physiological factors, the years, and cruel social reality.  We hope my play will lead to discussion on the chaotic confusion of reproductive women who must choose between two golden ages, that of female reproduction and the other of personal growth.

The Last Night of Anubis and Blank

Director：Zhao Chuan

Playwright：Bai Jing

Producer：Qin Jingyue

Performers：Sun Yihong / Li Meixian

Here is a scary question: Are you talented?

In a winter night, the hero is under the pressure of painful creation. He is convinced that if he does not write this masterpiece that night, at dawn he will be judged by Anubis.——In this apocalyptic land of 3022, only the talented can live, and the mediocre will be hunted. This human eliminated is the AI power given to Anubis by humans.

The hero drinks up his last bottle of industrial wine, he remembers eating plants and drugs for advocating Dionysian spirit. Under the pressure of the morning death approaching and the pain of creative exhaustion , he meets his visitors—the rent landlord, the dead ex-wife, the doctor who didn't even exist, and the most terrible Anubis, He cannot tell if it was real or imaginary. Would he survive the night? ...

The Blank Trial

Playwright：Yang Yiqing

Directors：Yang Yiqing / Huang Shidan

Executive producer：Huang Shidan

Producer / Publicity co-ordinator：Wang Jiayue

Stage Managers：Wang Huimin / Huang Shidan

Video designer：Wang Jiayue

Music designer：Yang Yiqing

Performers：Yang Yiqing / Wang Jiayue / Zhong Wenrui

[This performance will take place in the form of a trial].

Dear Judges.

Please find the following information about this "trial".

I. Overview of the trial.

The trial is designed to help citizens with incomplete emotional wavelengths to regain their lives on the other planet in order to ensure that they live happily ever after.

II. Participants in this trial.

Patient #210, Doctor #44 and you in the audience.

III. Notes on the trial

1. This is a serious trial from the year 2062.

2. Remain impartial, rational and objective. The outcome of the trial is sacred and cannot be altered, so please think carefully.

3. Believe that human emotions can be defined.

4. Remember, do not believe in the last clause.

5. During the trial, it is important to maintain freedom of movement and expression (both on and off the stage). Do not restrain yourself from applauding if you feel the urge to do so.

6. "First, second and third" are not so important. We are complex beings. The ability to feel emotions is inherent in every one.

The Third World

Playwright：Wu Qingyue

Director：Wang Jun

Assistant director：Wu Qinghua

Performers：Yang Manru / Wu Yi / Wu Qinghua

Prop fabrication：Wang Jun

Lighting designer：Wang Jun

What kind of world do we live in? Is it the world full of ideals? Or is there equal opportunity for all?

In the era of information explosion, how do we acquire knowledge? How do we form cognition?

This is the world where there are explicit rules and people succeed only by making great efforts.

Everyone wants to chase the clout, everyone wants to be the trending topic or may be forced to be the trending topic. In the short video, everyone attempts to be individual but is changed unconsciously.

There is a dog named Hu Xiaxia from Shannan. She continuously accepted the challenges and had been promoted from the L area to the A area in order to come back home. But in the live stream she was asked to cut canine teeth which represent Shannan bloodlines. Because of loving Hu Xiaxia, Cha Bingbing who formerly lazed away in the L area endeavored to take advantage of the rules to make Xiaxia’s dream come true. Unfortunately, both of them fell into the darkness. In this fictitious world, what is the truth? Who do they represent?

Modern Cave

Collective work：Yanis / Ennzoe / Zhao Liu / Ruisheng Xu / Ashley

Performers：Ruisheng Xu / Yanis / Zhao Liu

Prototype of character：Ennzoe

Hey, look! The man there, is a PPT engineer, standing on his wardrobe and facing his huge bed, at this very moment.

What he should have before, involved being woken up by the alarm, checking his handset, confirming demands, and creating fantastic pieces of PPT. However, he fell off his bed today, before the alarm rang. He was thrown at the wardrobe, and the impact between him and the knob woke him up with pain. Then he realized that his world was inverted!

Subsequently, without a handset he found himself in isolation from the world. In the meanwhile, the wardrobe was his isolated island.

Now, in this inverse modern cave belongs to him, the confused PPT engineer is snooping every sound coming through the walls from beyond the modern cave.

A Letter

Director / Playwright / Performer / Background / Post designer：Villos Young

Performer / Perform cooperatively：Diane Liu

Photographer / Cameraman / Perform cooperatively：Yang Zhuan

Voiceover：Wang Yingsong

One day in late autumn of Shanghai in 2050, she finally receives a letter which she has been expecting for a long time. The letter is from an old friend far away in England, whom she has not met for a long time. The words from the bosom friend touch her memory just like a gentle hand, lead her through time and space and meet her own life which is intertwined with smiles and tears.

We don't have a successful person in the secular sense here. On the contrary, she even carries some sin. Behind the most ordinary smile, there is a brilliant life with ups and downs. In the relentless tides of our times and society, there are always people who are strong and optimistic and trying to stand up and fight.

Perhaps there are small moments in this play that can touch your soft heart and maybe you will see yourself in it, or maybe...

This play in your eyes will bring you your own interpretation.

THE MAIA IN THE STORM

Director：Williams Hom

Playwright：YAN

Performers：Chi Haozhen / Giggie / Cc Qun

A mother and her son woke up early in the morning on a ship called the Maia. The son set sail excitedly, and all the sudden, a strange girl wandered into the sea, she is very interested in the boat, the mother and child on board. The mother drove her away in her own way, but this aroused the girl's competitive heart instead, she broke into this world again and again, and gradually opened the truth of this ship...

Pixels of Ferns

Producer / Playwright：Owynn

Directors：Owynn / Remory

Performers：Remory / Crystal / ZhengZhao Liu

Stage Manager：Kennedy

Music Designer：Owynn

Poster Designer：Owynn / Moon

Font Designer：Rib

Here is an infinite display of pixels with some patterns and some slogans on it.

You see it every day, but it’s unimaginable that beneath each pixel, at a negligible height, lives a group of little people, trained to reach out and change the right pixel piece at the right time, in every frame, minute by minute, second by second. Pixels linked together, whispering underneath, but once the music starts, we can't hear anything... ...

For them, how do they see something that is in it and a million times bigger than themselves? By jumping out and looking back over it; or by becoming each part of it in turn and knowing all the parts, the whole becomes clear in the mind, which one would they like to respectively choose？

So, is someone else looking at you ON the same way?

The Book of Life

Playwright / Director / Performer / Music designer & producer：Hui

Producer：Hu Die

Lighting Designer：Li Jingquan

Stage Manager：Shao Yipei

“The Book of Life” is a one-man show that explores the nature of life.

Is your life still going on?

Hollow Man No. 40126 comes to the Theatre of Life, where each Hollow Man has a Book of Life of his own, and they need to complete the performance and retrieve all the lines in the Book of Life.

Under the guidance of the AI, Hollow Man No.40126 begins to play his role in the real world. The Hollow Man's life goes on with one scene by another while the Book of Life starts to complete itself, and he gradually begins to have heartbeats and sense of touch. When his performance reaches the climax, the Hollow Man meets an accident unexpectedly ... What choice will he make? Will he go to the real human world, or disappear into the utter blankness ...

Code Romeo

Director / Playwright / Choreographer：Zhao Yuanhao

Performers：ZhaoYuanhao / TianKai / HeKun

Dramaturgy / Still：Liu Menghan

Art Director / Costume designer：Luo Xiaoran

In the future world, human beings have installed an emotional controller named "Romeo" for bionic people, but they did not expect that the transplanted bionic people would become sentimental. They would not only breed love for people around them, but also make extreme and crazy actions, which made people panic and decided to destroy "Romeo" and these bionic people completely. In the past few years, most of the bionic people have been destroyed by the repairmen. The bionic people 1021 and 1022 are the last two to be destroyed. During the period when they are about to be destroyed, they actually fell in love with each other. Although they have lost the ability to speak, they are still expressing their feelings and love for each other with their bodies. The repairman 1192 came to be responsible for the destruction, He was a single man who was addicted to alcohol. He never believed in any emotion controller, let alone that bionics could also produce love. But when he saw what the two bionics had done, he was moved by their love. At the time of the final destruction, he buried them together and cleared all the programs with the remote control.

We don’t know

Playwright / Director：Xie Yu

Performers： Chelsea Zhang / Huang Dingyi

Music designer：Yang Maoyuan

At a certain age there will be a lot of things you want to say, but you don't know where to start. This is not really the mentality of middle age, but the fear of the upcoming middle age. The play was written by a man and a woman chatting in a bar, without giving them names, in fact, they are still young people, fearful of the upcoming middle age, want to love, but also fear of love, soon they will cross that hurdle, so this is just a moment, this is fine, listen to them chatting, just like in the bar heard the next table chatting for 30 minutes, a certain sentence listened to, also listened to.