The Monkey King Hits NYC: A Conversation With Director Chen Shi-zheng
Jing Daily interviews the director of "Monkey: Journey to the West," a musical adaptation of one of China's most well-known classic tales that will open soon at Lincoln Center.
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- Your work Monkey: Journey to the West will serve as the opening show at the Lincoln Center Festival. Where else has the show been presented since its 2007 premiere?
- It has been a while since the debut. Did you have to recast the production with new actors? How has that affected the show?
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- What should we expect from the show?
- The show will be performed entirely in Chinese by Chinese actors. Who do you expect to be your target audience?
- How do you make Westerners accept and enjoy your work?
- Is this production related to your Chinese-Western education and life experiences?
- You are committed to conveying the essence of Chinese classical drama onto the European and American stages. Your previous work, such as The Peony Pavilion and The Orphan of Zhao , is popular in Europe and the United States. For Monkey: Journey to the West , how do yo combine the Chinese elements with the Western ones?
- As we all know, Journey to the West was made into a 25-episode TV series in China, but your musical only lasts 90 minutes. How did you concentrate such a long story into a short theater piece?
- After a month-long performance at Lincoln Center, where is the show headed next? Will it be presented in China?
- On the Lincoln Center website, it says that the tour was made possible by Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture, Government of Yancheng City, and Government of Jianhu County. Could you talk a little bit about their support?
- Are you working on any new projects?
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