The Images of Me: 2024 Prologue New Play Festival

Photo of "Whitewashed." Courtesy of Aaron Liau.

Staged readings are a liminal period for new plays in development. For rough ideas, they can be a lab where writings go through trial and error; for mature works, they can be a springboard to a bigger stage as a more formal production. Because of this in-betweenness, many playwrights and new play development centers have incorporated staged readings as part of the writing process.

However, in Taiwan, it seems that theatre-makers have yet to discover the benefits of staged readings, and plays are often rushed into rehearsals and productions. Seeing that the value of staged readings is underestimated, the Prologue Center for New Plays has organized the Prologue New Play Festival with the support of Believe in Next Generation, a Taipei-based non-profit organization. In the festival, new plays will meet their audiences for the first time in the form of staged readings.

This year, from September to December, four new plays will be presented at the festival: Whitewashed by Chester Tsai, Chronicle of Exile: Who Am I? by Chen-Wei Kuo, Two Women, One Man and a Pot of Tomato Potato Soup by Carman from Macau, and The Knife by Ihot Sinlay Cihek. “The Images of Me” being the theme, the four new plays are all attempts in response to the ever-asked question, “Who am I?” Some playwrights inspect the question through a racial and gender lens, while others do so by highlighting the fluidity of identity in their plays.

(Read the full article here.)