Playwrights
2026/27 Resident Artist
Chester Tsai
Chih-Ching Chester Tsai is a playwright-director from Taiwan. He holds an M.A. in Theatre from National Taiwan University and is an MFA candidate in Playwriting at UT Austin. A former resident director at Tainaner Ensemble, Chih-Ching treats the script as a score for bodies in space. His work investigates the exhaustion of performance, stripping away social costumes to reveal the visceral, messy reality underneath. Rooted in translation and hybridity, plays like Slipping through Fingers and The Reunion Dinner dismantle cultural “grand narratives.” He also wrote the musical Dancing through Formosa. He is also a facilitator and translator in theatre.
Selected Works
2026 | A Tale for Home | Playwright & Director
UT New Theatre Festival, Austin
2024 | Hamlet Machineman | Playwright & Adaptation
Department of Drama and Theatre, National Taiwan University
2024 | Whitewashed | Playwright
Prologue New Play Festival
2024 | Hell, This is Hell (Staged Reading) | Book & Lyrics
Taiwan Musical Reading Festival, Glory Foundation
2023 | Dancing Through Formosa | Book & Lyrics
The NTCH FormosART Series
2022 | Slipping through Fingers | Playwright & Director
Tainaner Ensemble X Jin Kuaile Puppet Theatre X Quanta Arts Foundation
2022 | Stand Up! | Playwright & Director
Performosa Theatre
2021 | The Madness of Titus Andronicus | Adaptation & Director
Tainaner Ensemble
2020 | The Reunion Dinner | Playwright & Director
Tainaner Ensemble
2019 | Antigone | Adaptation & Director
The Funny Old Tree Theatre Ensemble, Macau
Email Address
Personal Website
Last updated: February 2026