Productions to showcase variety of German theater offerings

Thomas Oberender, artistic director of the Berliner Festspiele, an arts center that brings together a variety of arts and culture events under one roof each year in the German capital, made his first trip to China in 2014, and he says the visit was beyond his expectations.

He went to Wuzhen, a small town in Zhejiang province, which is about a two-hour drive from Shanghai, to attend the Wuzhen Theater Festival, a 10-day event showcasing international theater works and original Chinese dramas from young talents.

Impressed by the old houses and warehouses, which were renovated and turned into performance venues, Oberender was also surprised to see how Chinese audiences embraced the theater works and how passionate the young Chinese theater talents were.