PRODUCTION The Tempest [Baofengyu]
Data Type：bio
Title：About Wu Hsing-kuo
Source：The Tempest Special Edition Program (2006)
Place：Taipei
Publisher：Contemporary Legend Theatre [Dangdai chuanqi juchang]
Date：2006
Language：English
Abstract：bio of artistic director
WU Hsing-Kuo / Artistic Director
WU Hsing-Kuo is currently the Artistic Director of the Contemporary Legend Theatre. From age 11, he studied at the Fu-Hsing Chinese Opera School for eight years, specializing in wu sheng (male martial roles). He was admitted with honor into the Theatre Department of Chinese Culture University and became the leading dancer of the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Later he studied with Master Zhou Zheng-rong, broadening his field to include civil and martial lao sheng (middle-aged or old male roles). He played a wide variety of roles and won the Military Golden Award for the best actor three times.
In 1986, he and a group of enthusiastic friends founded the Contemporary Legend Theatre, revitalizing traditional Chinese theatre by adapting Western classical plays to the styles and techniques of Peking opera. He was both leading actor and director of 4 Shakespearean plays, 2 Greek tragedies, 4 Chinese traditional pieces, and Beckette’s Waiting for Godot. He has been a regular participant of international festivals and generally recognized as a pioneer in cross-cultural performance.
A versatile performing artist, WU crosses the fields of traditional opera, dance, modern theatre, cinema, and television. He received Fulbright Scholarship to study in New York with Richard Schechner in 1992. In the same year, he won the Hong Kong Film Award as best new actor. In 2002, he received a performance invitation from GAO Xinjian, the 2000 Nobel Laureate for Literature, to play the leading role Hui-Neng, the great Sixth Patriarch of Zen, in August Snow. The play was a tremendous success at the Opera de Marseille in 2005. WU was commissioned by the Council for Cultural Affairs to help reconstruct the traditional theatre in Cambodia in 2005. His future performances include The First Emperor, directed by Zhang Yi-Mou, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2006, an extensive US tour of three plays - King Lear, Farewell My Concubine, and The Drunken Concubine – and a new production The Butterfly Dream with Kunqu actress Qian Yi in 2007.
WU Hsing-Kuo is currently the Artistic Director of the Contemporary Legend Theatre. From age 11, he studied at the Fu-Hsing Chinese Opera School for eight years, specializing in wu sheng (male martial roles). He was admitted with honor into the Theatre Department of Chinese Culture University and became the leading dancer of the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Later he studied with Master Zhou Zheng-rong, broadening his field to include civil and martial lao sheng (middle-aged or old male roles). He played a wide variety of roles and won the Military Golden Award for the best actor three times.
In 1986, he and a group of enthusiastic friends founded the Contemporary Legend Theatre, revitalizing traditional Chinese theatre by adapting Western classical plays to the styles and techniques of Peking opera. He was both leading actor and director of 4 Shakespearean plays, 2 Greek tragedies, 4 Chinese traditional pieces, and Beckette’s Waiting for Godot. He has been a regular participant of international festivals and generally recognized as a pioneer in cross-cultural performance.
A versatile performing artist, WU crosses the fields of traditional opera, dance, modern theatre, cinema, and television. He received Fulbright Scholarship to study in New York with Richard Schechner in 1992. In the same year, he won the Hong Kong Film Award as best new actor. In 2002, he received a performance invitation from GAO Xinjian, the 2000 Nobel Laureate for Literature, to play the leading role Hui-Neng, the great Sixth Patriarch of Zen, in August Snow. The play was a tremendous success at the Opera de Marseille in 2005. WU was commissioned by the Council for Cultural Affairs to help reconstruct the traditional theatre in Cambodia in 2005. His future performances include The First Emperor, directed by Zhang Yi-Mou, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2006, an extensive US tour of three plays - King Lear, Farewell My Concubine, and The Drunken Concubine – and a new production The Butterfly Dream with Kunqu actress Qian Yi in 2007.
