Finding his own way

Scenes from Cosi, an adaptation from Australian playwright Louis Nowra's popular stage production of 1992. The Chinese version is theater-loving Tong Xinyu's debut directoral work. [Photo by He Buzhi/China Daily]

After three years with a prestigious mentor, a young drama enthusiast is staging Western plays translated into Chinese, Chen Nan reports.

In the summer of 2012, one year before mathematics major Tong Xinyu graduated from Zhejiang University, he came to Beijing looking for any possible opportunity to work in theater.

After a number of interviews with people from the field, the young man, who had no professional experience in theater, still couldn't find a chance to fulfill his dream.

The last hope on Tong's list was Joseph Graves, the artistic director of Peking University's Institute of World Theater and Film. They had dinner together and Tong presented Graves with his work as a member of a campus theater club.

Graves, a veteran Broadway director who has lived and worked in China since 2002, treated Tong to a half portion of Peking duck, yuxiang rousi (fish-flavored shredded pork)－and by the end of the dinner, offered Tong a job as his assistant.

It was the start of a mentor-pupil relationship between Graves and Tong. Since then, Tong has acted in Graves' works adapted from Western shows, including Man of La Mancha and Avenue Q. He also took on other tasks, such as translating scripts and scheduling auditions.

At the end of 2014, Tong told Graves about his idea of establishing his own theater company. With Graves' encouragement, Tong directed his first play, Cosi, which was adapted from Australian playwright Louis Nowra's popular stage production of 1992 by the same title.

In May, the play had its successful debut in Beijing, and from June 17 to July 5, it will be staged again in the capital.

Cosi is about the story of a young man, Lewis, who just graduated from university and has no theatrical experience. He is hired to run a drama therapy program at a mental institution in Melbourne. Lewis plans to do a simple variety show but is diverted by a patient, an opera aficionado, who initiates the idea of taking on Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte instead.