NEW TEXT, NEW STAGE II – Session 3

Building on the previous sessions in Beijing (July 2015) and Shanghai (November 2015), the Guangzhou workshop saw all eight plays carefully read, discussed, rehearsed and staged (in short excerpts) by 3 directors from Norway, Germany and Hong Kong and a group of local actors.

The scope is wide. The 8 plays, written by playwrights from different continents and backgrounds, range from a conversation between an African kidnapper and a Canadian volunteer to a Russian man gone missing after WW II, from a Eastern-European migrant helping an upper-class Norwegian lady to relocate to an ambitious Chinese actress chasing fame in New York. All the plays explore the theme of migration, love and loss, hope and despair, the weight of personal choices and unexpected meetings.

The 3rd workshop Guangzhou is not the end of the journey. In the following months, theaters in both China and overseas have expressed interest in producing the eight scripts. Ibsen International is working to organize the first “New Text – New Stage Festival” in China in 2017. Our ultimate goal is to portray the conflicts and opportunities migration imposes on humanity, to be shown, seen, and discussed openly all over the world.

1. FINAL ROUND OF FEEDBACK

Each of the playwrights were given a 2-hour private feedback session with 2 dramaturges to discuss ideas of further development for the texts. The session also had a practical aspect in giving input on how to make the scripts ready for real-world production. In the presence of the dramaturges and the other authors each playwright got the chance to have an open reading of their plays, and receive feedback and suggestions from their global peers.

2. FROM PAGE TO STAGE: performance of short excerpts

In the presence of the playwrights, professional directors and actors rehearsed each of the developed excerpts for 5-hour sessions. This approach opens for a unique opportunity for the authors and directors to communicate and interact directly in the creative process. To the playwrights this is a unique opportunity to see their staged in a professional setting. To the directors and actors this opens a rare opportunity to work directly with the author, and get a deeper understanding of the texts and their underlying intentions.

The public performance at the end of the workshop was a significant event in the theater community of Guangzhou, all tickets were booked within days. At the after-show talk, a young woman shared her grandma’s tragic migration story with the historical context of China 30 years ago. The leader of a local theatre group noted that the physical language employed in “Noise” (see below) was the best depiction of the mentality of Chinese parents she had seen.

 3. FROM LOCAL TO GLOBAL: getting ready to production

The ultimate goal of New text New Stage II is to produce all the 8 plays created through the project for a 2017  theatre festival  in China. Through the festival, we also aim to create an international network for the promotion of global contemporary writing. Our ultimate goal is to portray the conflicts and opportunities migration imposes on humanity, to be shown, seen, and discussed openly all over the world.