This year's Faust Festival will feature its most challenging productions to date, showing how Hong Kong's young performers have matured since the first festival in 2001.
The annual festival, presented by the Faust International Youth Theatre, is one of Hong Kong's most popular arts events. It will run from May 29 to June 17 at the Hong Kong Arts Centre and will involve more than 600 local child performers as well as adult stage artists from overseas.
'A lot of the children have been with us for quite a few years, and every year we try to raise their skill level and reflect this in the performances that we put out in the festival,' says Matthew Gregory, the theatre's director.
'We have chosen subject matter and scripts that are more challenging. It is hard work, but I think it will pay off and it will be good for everybody involved.'
This year's highlights include The Royal Hunt of the Sun, a play by Peter Shaffer performed by the oldest group of Faust child actors aged 12 to 16, and Jabberwocky, an original play based on the poem by Lewis Carroll, as well as a new stage adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince.
Shakespeare also features on the programme. As You Like It, directed by Jessica Lefkow and performed by adult actors, and This is Your Life, an imaginary tale about Shakespeare being lured into participating as a guest on a TV show, will be presented to test the water for staging other Shakespearean productions in the city in the future.
'We are starting off with one of Shakespeare's lighter plays, a comedy [As You Like It]. We need to know our audience's acceptance of Shakespeare as there aren't a lot of English Shakespeare productions in Hong Kong,' says Gregory.
