Wuzhen theater festival in transmission

The Third Wuzhen Theater Festival will run from Oct 15-24 at Wuzhen, in eastern China's Zhejiang province.

The theme of this year's festival is Transmittal. Renowned English theater and film director Peter Prook, 90, has been invited as the honorary chairman.

In addition to presenting plays directed by established directors from both home and abroad, the 10-day event will also organize a competition for young theater people, discussions, workshops and masterclasses, and an outdoor carnival in the streets of Wuzhen.

"Transmittal" is also theme for this year's theater competition for young people. The performance must be under 30 minutes and feature one "circle", one lamp and a kiss.

Participants can apply to enter on wuzhenfestival.com before July 31. The 12 finalists will be announced on Aug 31and will perform during the festival.

As the previous two years, the competition will award prizes for best play ($16,130), best actor or actress ($9,700). This year there will also be three teams Special Achievement prizes given. Each team can win two round trip plane tickets to festivals either Germany, Russia or France.

Directors Stan Lai, Meng Jinghui, Tian Qinxin and playwright Shi Hang will give masterclasses from 9-12 am for eight days. The fee is 8,000 yuan ($1,290) for each person and all the money will go to the Wuzhen Youth Theater Fund.

The annual festival gathers together the most important figures of Chinese theater, including Taiwan director Lai as executive chairman, Lai's director wife, Ding Nai-chu, as executive director, avant-garde director Meng as the artistic director, director Tian as the artistic consultant and actor Huang Lei as producing director.

Entrepreneur Chen Xianghong, who turned the 1,300 year-old Wuzhen into a tourism hot spot, initiated the festival in 2013.

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