New Buds on a Fertile Island: New Play Development in Taiwan, Part 1

New writing stretches the boundaries of theatre arts. Though writing may seem a solitary profession, many good plays were developed through multiple discussions, workshops, and readings. The idea of new play development became institutionalized and valued in the last century, with the Royal Court Theatre becoming a writers’ theatre in 1956 and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center being founded in 1964. These two institutions, among others, have changed the scene of playwriting in the UK and US respectively.

However, in Taiwan, most playwrights had been writing in isolation until recent years. Once some theatre professionals learned that playwriting can be developed in a dynamic and iterative process, they began launching their own new play development programs. The most notable ones today are offered by Our Theatre, Voleur du Feu Theatre, and Prologue Center for New Plays.

Our Theatre’s program, the Farm of Plays, boasts the longest history among the three, with a collection of more than 30 plays developed there since its inception in 2013. Voleur du Feu Theatre’s Playwright Lab, run by four playwrights, is renowned for its writing mentorship and matchmaking sessions. The Prologue Center for New Plays is an incubator that has a series of programs to help playwrights broaden their views and inspire creative thinking in the hope of exploring Taiwan’s diverse cultures and voices through theatre and making the island’s artistic energies more visible on the world stage.

Our Theatre’s Farm of Plays

The seed for the Farm of Plays was planted in 1994, long before the program was established. That year, Yu-Hui Wang, the program director and a seasoned Taiwanese playwright, spent his summer at Shenandoah International Playwrights Retreat in the United States. He wrote a play and had it read on a farm during the eight-week stay in Virginia. The sojourn left a deep impression on Wang. He wanted to create a similar program for Taiwanese playwrights. Yet such a grand scheme takes more than the effort of one person, so it was suspended until he brought up the idea to Our Theatre in 2013. They clicked, and the Farm of Plays has been active for over a decade.

The multi-year program starts with Wang or Our Theatre inviting emerging playwrights each year. The first year is focused on developing ideas, crafting outlines, and writing the first draft. There are no limitations on form; straight plays, musical works, and Xiqu are all embraced. When the playwrights complete the first draft, Our Theatre takes them on a trip to Chiayi or Taitung, two slow-paced cities located in southern and eastern Taiwan. The trip includes private readings of the plays, during which the playwrights can have discussions with the directors and ensemble cast. In the second year, the playwrights dedicate six months to revisions before their plays undergo rehearsals and receive public readings at Chiayi New Works Festival in the fall. The public readings are attended by not only a paying audience but theatre critics. The critics provide immediate feedback, which is beneficial to the playwrights before moving into the final stage: publication. The playwrights spend the third year revising and editing their plays. As the plays go into print, the program comes to an end.

The spirit of the Farm of Plays, according to Wang, is to stay with, to root for, and to watch over the playwrights. Wang and Our Theatre believe that as long as they continue to sow seeds in new playwriting, they will see a fruitful harvest one day. So far, the Farm of Plays has incubated more than thirty emerging playwrights, and many of them are critically acclaimed writers now.

 

Voleur du Feu Theatre’s Playwright Lab

Voleur du Feu Theatre’s Playwright Lab was born from nostalgia. One day, Tian-Ya Liu, the executive director and playwright in residence of the theater company, was reminiscing with three of her playwright friends about their school days when they read and discussed each other’s work. Such good old memories motivated them to form a writers group in 2019 which then turned into a developmental program.

Today, the Playwright Lab is an annual program, starting with an open call in February and ending with a public reading of four hour-long plays in November. The four original members, Liu, Ying-Kuen Ho, Wan-Ting Shen, and Chien-Jen Wang, act as mentors for the emerging playwrights selected for the program and work intensively with their mentees. Later, the plays enter the rehearsal phase, in which directors and actors join the process, offering feedback for the revision process. In the end, a public reading of the plays is held as part of their Play Market Festival, a weekend-long event inspired by the Stückemarkt at the Theatertreffen in Germany. The Play Market Festival also features writing workshops, master classes, and, most importantly, a matchmaking session. Voleur du Feu Theatre finds it crucial that playwrights know the market value of their works and offers pitching workshops to help playwrights prepare. The matchmaking session serves as an opportunity for playwrights to build partnerships and for their plays to find production opportunities.

After the play festival, the playwrights edit their plays for publication. When asked about the reason for publishing these plays, Liu says that playwrights tend to be more committed to revising if their plays are scheduled for publication. She also believes that new plays are vital for the theatre ecosystem in Taiwan.

 

To read PART II of this essay, go to this link. 

(Kuan-Ting Lin is a translator and dramaturg based in Taiwan, as well as the Literary Manager of the Prologue Center for New Plays.)