Writer and activist Liu Xiaobo, prior to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, creates a deepening bond with the Mothers of Tiananmen in order to seek freedom of speech and justice in China. Leaving incarceration for the third time at the start of the new Millennium, Liu Xiaobo struggles with his conscience but finds his inspiration from the Lost Souls of the Tiananmen Massacre and the Goddess of Democracy,...
Writer and activist Liu Xiaobo, prior to winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, creates a deepening bond with the Mothers of Tiananmen in order to seek freedom of speech and justice in China. Leaving incarceration for the third time at the start of the new Millennium, Liu Xiaobo struggles with his conscience but finds his inspiration from the Lost Souls of the Tiananmen Massacre and the Goddess of Democracy, also a memory character in the play. Faced with shifting political sands, Liu Xiaobo charts a path of peaceful resistance that perhaps fails to consider the risk of rearrest and the consequences to others -- including his artist-poet wife, Liu Xia. When Liu Xiaobo is, in fact, rearrested, Chinese authorities work to further silence his ideas by placing his wife under house detention. This is a story of people who struggle with their conscience and summon the moral courage to shoulder the burdens of a people and resistance to oppression.
Readings: Urban Stages, NYC, sponsored by the Visual Artists Guild; HBO Play Reading Series of the TV Academy, NYC. Workshop: New York City at Urban Stages, directed by Keira Loughran of Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Canada), Nov 2015.
Finalist, Kitchen Dog Theater, Dallas; SemiFinalist, PlayPenn, Philadelphia; SemiFinalist, Bay Area Playwrights' Festival, San Francisco.
"'Stones of Tiananmen' was so engaging... People in the audience were laughing and crying.” "The audience applauded with excitement." Jing Zhang, Women's Rights in China (reading, TV Academy Play Series, HBO).
Alternate Working Title: I Have No Enemies
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Stones of Tiananmen
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Kitchen Dog Theater:
25 Apr. 2018
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We are pleased to support this play! It was a Finalist for the 2018 New Works Festival at Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas, Texas. ”
All of the characters are Chinese/Asian. There is doubling.