Silk Road Rising, under the direction of Jamil Khoury and Malik Gillani, has been a Chicago institution for amplifying Asian-American and Middle Eastern-American artistic voices since 2002. In keeping with the company's stated core values of discovery, pluralism, and empathy, the New China Festival, led by director Helen Young, will present a trio of staged readings of plays by authors from the Chinese-speaking world from August 4 through 19.
Acclaimed playwright David Henry Hwang led a curation panel for the three selections, which vary significantly in style and theme. They are Dialogue & Rebuttal by Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian; Speaking as Then by Ruoxin Ji, a young playwright originally from Nanjing now studying at Columbia University; and Sand on a Distant Star by Stan Lai.