How to Teach With Chinese Theater Collaborative
By all accounts, teaching traditional Chinese theater in a global context can be challenging. In recent years, however, many scholars and theater practitioners have begun to create more resources that allow for Chinese plays to come alive in the global classroom. The Chinese Theater Collaborative site enhances those resources through references to, analysis of, and visual excerpts from important modern productions of iconic plays.
Some of the specific ways that using the "Chinese Theater Collaborative" can enrich teaching the classroom:
1. Examine continuity and change in Chinese approaches to ethical dilemmas, individual agency and power structures
2. Explore the expressive repertoire of Chinese theater and other media through thematic analysis
3. Inspire students to create their own adaptations of Chinese plays either as part of their Chinese language learning, literature engagement, and/or theatrical training.
4. Provide opportunities for aspiring T&I practitioners to produce English translations and/or subtitles for Chinese language adaptations of traditional plays.
Below are listed a number of different kinds of resources that can be used in the different types of settings: Chinese language instruction, literature, culture, and history classes, as well as theaters and performance classes.
Language Learning Resources:
Guo Yingde, Wenbo Chang, Patricia Sieber and Xiaohui Zhang, ed. How To Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023).
Full English Translations of the Six Plays Featured In How To Read Chinese Drama in Chinese:
Birch, Cyril, ed. and trans. The Peony Pavilion: Mudan ting. Second Edition. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Hsia, C.T., Wai-yee Li, and George Kao, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
Llamas, Regina S., ed. and trans. Top Graduate Zhang Xie: The Earliest Extant Southern Play. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021.
Mulligan, Jean, ed. and trans. The Lute. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.
West, Stephen H. and Wilt L. Idema, ed and trans. The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.
----. The Story of the Western Wing. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995.
Analysis of Important Plays:
Sieber, Patricia and Regina Llamas, ed. How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.