2026 Wuzhen Theatre Festival to open in October
(ECNS) -- The 13th Wuzhen Theatre Festival will run from Oct. 15 to 25 in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, featuring 25 productions from 10 countries.
This year’s festival will be held under the theme “Serene Transcendence,” a phrase drawn from The Book of Jin that evokes a sense of inner calm and lofty aspiration. Organizers said the theme reflects the festival’s commitment to staying true to the original spirit of theatrical creation.
The featured productions will be presented across five sections, with 71 performances of 25 plays staged over 11 days. The lineup includes 11 overseas productions from countries including Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Belgium and Chile, along with two China-international co-productions and 12 domestic works.
The festival will open with The Wild Duck, directed by German theatre director Thomas Ostermeier and performed by Schaubühne Berlin. The production premiered at the 2025 Avignon Festival and received widespread acclaim.
The closing production, Cosmos, will be directed by French director Maëlle Poésy and performed by Dijon-Burgundy Theatre. Based on the true story of NASA’s Mercury 13 program, the play explores the experiences of women who sought to become astronauts during the early years of the U.S. space program.
The festival has also continued to provide a platform for young theatre creators. Over the past 12 years, its youth competition has attracted more than 10,000 applicants, selected over 800 young theatre artists and brought 197 productions to the stage, according to Wuzhen’s official website.
For the first time, this year’s youth competition will open to applicants worldwide, inviting Chinese-language theatre creators from around the globe to submit works inspired by the themes of “gliding, fox and radio.”
Huang Lei, co-founder and chief producer of the festival, said the competition welcomes both original works and adaptations of classics or literary works, with the aim of creating more opportunities for young artists and supporting the development of Chinese theatre.
(By Helen Mo, intern Liu Shuangjing)