The Chinese answer to the Edinburgh Arts Festival, the Wuzhen Theater Festival, is back this October. The annual international extravaganza, which takes place in the historic water town in east China's Zhejiang Province, says this year’s festival will be even bigger and packed with more surprises.
Despite the cool October temperatures, Wuzhen will be one of China's hottest destinations, drawing in tourists as well as theater enthusiasts and professionals from around the globe.
From October 18 to 28, the sixth edition of the festival will stage a total of 109 performances by 27 productions. The organizers have promised more diversity this year, selecting productions from five continents and featuring a variety of styles.
Renowned theater director Stan Lai, one of the founders of the Wuzhen Theater Festival, is proud to introduce more experimental works to this year's program.
"I think that the charm of the festival is that you have a lot of highlight shows and you also have the very interesting experiment. Mabou Mines will be performing 'Animal Magnetism.' The whole group is from New York and their founder will be coming, which is a real honor for us," Stan Lai said.
The souring popularity of the festival has made it a magnet for the world's top-notch theater troupes. This year's headliner includes the Moscow Art Academic Theater from Russia and the Thalia Theater from Hamburg, Germany.
"This year I attended some festivals in Europe. And there were people talking about the Wuzhen Theater Festival," Stan Lai said, amazed by the festival's international reputation. "I couldn't believe they were saying, 'Oh, Wuzhen Theater Festival is the leading festival in the world.' I said, 'Wait a minute. It is a little too much.' But what they wanted to say is that Wuzhen is a festival of its own. There is no other festival like it in the world because it's enclosed and all of the theaters are within walking distance. There is no city traffic like Avignon and Edinburgh."
