Okada, in partnership with the Japan Foundation Asia Centre, will hold auditions for actors as well as an assistant director and an assistant producer for a new work he’ll bring to the stage in 2018.

After that there’s likely to be a tour of Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia and Europe. So the three to six performers sought in Bangkok will have to make long-term commitments, including for rehearsals both in Japan and Thailand.

The preferred assistant director must be able to understand Okada’s directing process and help record daily rehearsal sessions in Thai, Japanese or English, as well as scheduling them.

One or two assistant producers are also needed to handle various duties, including liaison, publicity, accounting and coordination of rehearsals, performances and tours.

Applicants should email a CV in English or Japanese, a face photo and a written statement of aims and ambitions to toshikiokada2018@gmail.com by April 10.

Find out more at http://www.Chelfitsch.net.

Called “Fearless Girl” and created by US artist Kristen Visbal, the bronze girl stands defiant, hands on hips and chin jutting out, directly challenging the famous “Charging Bull” statue that is a symbol of Wall Street.

It was installed on March 7 by investment company State Street Global Advisors on the eve of International Women’s Day to create awareness for the need for greater gender diversity on company boards.

The bronze statue was supposed to stay only a week but the day after its installation, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said it would remain until April 2.

“Our statue has taken her place for all of Wall Street to see — a place where corporate America cannot help but notice her,” wrote Jill Mavro, head of strategic relations for State Street, in a blog.

An online petition set up on change.org calling for the statue’s installation to be made permanent has already attracted more than 17,600 supporters.

A spokeswoman for State Street confirmed that the group was in talks with city officials about leaving the statue in place. “We’re thrilled with the strong support that the public has shown,” she said.

The iconic “Charging Bull” bronze sculpture was installed in December 1989 in the city’s Wall Street financial district.

Created by Italian-American sculptor Arturo Di Modica, it is meant to celebrate the can-do spirit of America, which the artist saw as the antidote to the 1987 Wall Street market crash.

It is famed as the place where gladiators battled lions to the amusement of the citizens of ancient Rome.

But of the six million visitors who flock to the Colosseum each year, how many know that during mediaeval times, it was also the fortress base of a powerful Roman family for over two centuries?

Or that in the 1600s, it was like a  botanical garden? Its state of semi-abandon, combined with a micro-climate, enabled more than 400 species of plants to flourish inside its arched walls.

Now, thanks to some archaeological detective work based on discoveries made during a spruce-up, a new exhibition recounts some of the untold stories of one of the world’s most-visited monuments.

“The Colosseum: An icon,” which opens on a middle floor of the amphitheatre on Wednesday and runs until next January, shows that life inside the iconic structure did not end with the disintegration of the empire or the final show of the classical era, in 523 AD.

“What it shows is the extraordinary capacity the Colosseum has had to assume different identities over the centuries,” said Francesco Prosperetti, one of the officials in charge of the jewel in the crown of Italian tourism.

– Ram’s head, carved antlers –

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Scholars had long been aware that the mediaeval-era Colosseum had a fortress owned by the Frangipane family.

But much of the archaeological evidence of it was lost at the time of 19th-century excavations, when masonry was removed for new buildings or restorations elsewhere in the city.

Recent restoration work on upper sections of the partially-intact structure however uncovered traces of what was a raised wooden walkway which served as a lookout for the Frangipanes’ soldiers, constantly wary of attacks by rival families.

That has enabled historical experts to put together model and pictorial representations of what the mediaeval Colosseum would have looked like, and these are among the highlights of the new exhibition.

Other archaeological finds, including one side of a ram’s head and carved antlers, point to the mediaeval Colosseum being a hive of activity with the fortified aristocratic residence serviced by a range of businesses, market gardens and religious institutions.

The wooden fortress was partially destroyed by a 1349 earthquake but its surviving structures were later incorporated into a hospital sponsored by wealthy families whose seals have been recently found in digs on the site.

The collection also explores how the building came to be a reference point for students of architecture from far afield and, following its later fall into an elegant state of semi-abandon, how it inspired Renaissance painters and romantic poets.

– Renovation and new boss –

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Completed in 80 AD, the Colosseum was the biggest amphitheatre built during the Roman empire.

Standing 48.5 metres (159 feet) high, it was capable of hosting 80,000 spectators for feasts of entertainment that encapsulated the brutality, hedonism and engineering genius that were among the defining features of ancient Rome.

The first phase of a major makeover of the venue was completed in July 2016 with a number of sections structurally strengthened and most of the remaining walls water-sprayed to remove centuries of encrusted dirt and grime.

The works were largely financed — to a reported tune of 25 million euros ($26.5 million) — by upmarket shoe and fashion company Tod’s.

The government has pledged to put up the cash for a second phase which will involve rebuilding the arena floor and make the venue capable of hosting concerts and other cultural events, including re-enactment of some Roman-era events.

The culture ministry has also advertised for a new supremo to oversee the Colosseum as part of a broader shake-up of the management of the country’s landmark historic and cultural attractions.

Tran Luc returned to a very different Vietnam after studying in Bulgaria for seven years, but went on to make his mark as actor, TV-film producer and teacher. Then, 30 years into his career, he unleashed his deep-set passion for theatre with a trail-blazing, awarding-winning comedy.

Watching the audience as they viewed the first play he’s ever staged, Luc was delighted to see “excited youngsters tapping their toes and clapping their hands along with the lead actor’s rap performance on the Vietnam Youth Theatre stage”.

The “older spectators”, he noticed, were “quiet, not quite sure what is happening on the stage”. But the audience mainly comprised fourth-year students from the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema.

The comedy, “Quan” (“Stupefaction”), might be considered representative of modern Vietnamese theatre. “I set it up to give my students a chance to access expressionism on stage,” Luc says. “Comedy is my favourite style and I want them to learn about different theatrical styles.”

The comedy – written by late dramatist Long Chuong in 1960 – is about an upper-middle-class man, Dai Cat, and his family as they try and hide their wealth after being ordered to yield their property to a new government. Dai Cat’s daughter spoils the plans.

Luc adjusted the original script because he felt the author was mocking the upper-middle class, a sentiment that “no longer suits our time”.

“The playwright’s intention is to enlighten the upper middle class to follow the new government, but they’re human beings too. The comedy teaches people about the history of their country. The audience laughs at the infantile thoughts of the older generations and, when people laugh, that means there’s been development.”

“Quan” earned Luc the best-director award at the Hanoi Theatre Festival in December, the play won a gold medal and the cast claimed three silvers.

The actors performed in the expressionistic style called “epic theatre” devised by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht “to make the audience question and think about what they are watching”, Luc explains.

“Western theatre is much influenced by the theatre of Japan and China, and when I staged ‘Quan’ I wanted to take advantage of the Vietnamese traditional art genres of tuong [drama] and cheo [opera]. In tuong, just three actors performing with whips can express the image of thousands of troop riding horses to battle.”

But “Quan” broke with the predominant tradition established by the first Vietnamese spoken drama, Vu Dinh Long’s 1921 “Chen Thuoc Doc” (“A Cup of Poison”) and the Vietnam National Drama Theatre founded in 1952, which relied on Stanislavski’s “psychological realism”.

“‘Quan’ amazed me – I’m surprised that Tran Luc did this,” says People’s Artist Le Khanh of the Youth Theatre. “I always liked the comedy very much and had asked several famous directors to revive it, but they refused. They said it was outdated.”

Luc’s father, People’s Artist and former cheo star Tran Bang, got to see the show at his home. Too old to attend the theatre, he watched a video of the performance that his son made for him.

“Epic theatre is something that hasn’t received much attention from Vietnamese directors,” Bang said. “In the past only Nguyen Dinh Nghi and Doan Anh Thang used it, but they focused on stage design, not acting.”

Returning in 1991 from a five-year course in Bulgaria in theatre directing and acting, Luc missed the introduction of the national doi moi (renewal) process. Adjusting took some time as he concentrated on getting established in the industry first.

He played the lead in the movie “Chuyen Tinh Ben Dong Song” (“Love Story on the Riverbank”) and several others, won awards, and in 2001 was recognised as a Meritorious Artist. Still, he wasn’t satisfied being a successful actor.

In 2002 he ventured into television-film production with his own Dong A Studio. That too proved a success, but as a teacher at the Hanoi Academy, he seeks still more.

“The most valuable thing is that I do a comedy in my style and give my students a chance to practise. I want them to become skilful actors.”

Organised by the Henoch Levin Institute of Israeli Drama and supported by Ministry of Culture and Sport, “Isra-Drama: Spotlight on Israeli Drama” is an annual five-day programme that invites theatre managers and festival curators from all over the world to experience contemporary Israeli theatre in Tel Aviv.

Not only did we get to watch play performances, mostly in Hebrew with English surtitles and some even entirely in English, but we also attended symposiums where playwrights and directors talked with theatre scholars and critics. There was an informal gathering too, where Israeli artists, whose works might not have been picked by Isra-Drama’s artistic committee, could meet with foreign producers and managers and exchange name cards and information on what they’re working on.

The world is never short of powerhungry leaders and “Jehu” is still relevant. Photo/Gerard Allon

Even in this day and age when audiences are accustomed to watching a play in a foreign language while reading surtitles, plays do not travel as far across cultures or as frequently as dance works, which have no language barrier. That said, although playwrights think of their local audiences first and foremost – for example, Shakespeare wrote his plays to earn a living and never imagined that four centuries later we’d still be watching them – some of their works hit the right chords with foreign audiences.

Wildly entertaining and dramaturgically poignant “Worst Case Scenario”. Photo/Roni Gross.

At Isra-Drama 2016, foreign theatre producers and managers were captivated by the contemporary interpretation of biblical morality play “Jehu” by Gilad Evron at the Habima National Theatre, arrested by a familial conflict between the Jews and Palestinians in Motti Lerner’s “The Admission” at the Jaffa Theatre, which had its world premiere in Washington DC, and enthralled by a trilogy called “Nephilim” (“Giants”) on celebrities, namely a former prime minister, a judo athlete and a supermodel, at the Cameri Theatre.

Among our favourites, though – and I’m sure these will soon travel overseas – were two works which are more universal in content and form, namely Nataly Zukerman’s “Practice Makes Perfect” and Danielle Cohen Levy and Namer Golan’s “Worst Case Scenario”.

Veteran actress Smadar Yaaron portrays supermodel Bar Israeli in “Nephilim”. Photo/Eli Katz

The former is the physically challenged artist Zukerman’s autobiographical work. Working with a running instructor, a dancer, friends and her husband on stage, she proved that while a disability is usually connected with limitations, a disabled artist can work professionally and create works that don’t necessary call for sympathy but understanding. It was the most sincere and touching disabled theatre work I’ve ever experienced.

The latter, subtitled “23 Thoughts About Conflict”, was a result of Levy and Golan’s one-year research into daily conflicts in the Middle East, many parts of which reminded me of what happened a few years ago during our political unrest. Filled with young energy and fresh creativity, the four performers – a juggler, an acrobat/dancer, an actress/playwright and a musician who also created a new instrument exclusively for this performance – made deft use of their different performing arts backgrounds, working together cohesively as they performed 23 episodes in an entertaining variety of spoken words, physical movements, dance and songs.

This is the kind of programme our Culture and Foreign Affairs ministries should start thinking about and organising down the line.

Some of our contemporary dance and theatre companies, which have been under the radar for many years, are performing overseas, but that’s either at the direct invitation from festivals or through support from foreign embassies and cultural institutions here. Creative industry isn’t only limited to film and television, is it?

An anthology of contemporary Southeast Asian plays has recently been published and representing Thailand is a play that’s written in English and adapted from Greek mythology. Having worked professionally in theatre for almost three decades, I’ve never heard of either the play or the playwright and doubt whether it’s ever been staged. This clearly proves that we’re not really providing accurate information on contemporary Thai theatre to our foreign colleagues yet.

The writer’s trip was supported by Israel’s Ministry of Culture and Sport and Embassy of Israel, Bangkok. Special thanks to Shimrit Ron, Hemdi Kfir, Yuval Waks and Kuntheera Stityuthakarn.

Two Chinese artists will soon present their experiments in ink at Asia Week in New York. Both elderly and young artists are giving the traditional art form contemporary and fashionable touches lately.

Calligrapher Qiu Zhenzhong and painter Shen Jinbo will show 32 pieces at Contemporary Art and Editions from March 25 to April 15. Titled “Formation & Movement”, the joint exhibition will focus on the beauty of ink paintings and the skills needed to make them.

Qiu, now in his 70s, will show his series “Statues” and “Shan Hai Jing Prequel”.

The first comprises paintings in which he sought to portray the different stages of a lily flower blossoming, while the second entails abstract pieces in ink inspired by the “Shan Hai Jing”, an ancient compilation of myths with many beasts and monsters.

Qiu says that, in creating these abstracts, the movement of the ink made him think of those monsters, and hence the series’ title.

Each stroke in Qiu’s work is clean and tight, much like his calligraphy, which he has practised since he was a teenager. He is a professor of calligraphy at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing and has published many books on the subject. His long experience has helped him create abstract paintings that he says naturally form from his writing.

“Calligraphy is stereotyped as a very traditional art,” he says. “I’m glad that I can transform it into contemporary art.”

Shen, 39, will also display two series – “Pieces from the Seasons” and “World”. The first follows a narrative style of ink drawing and the second constitutes abstract paintings.

Unlike Qiu’s white-and-black canvases, Shen’s works take on lots of hues, a result of his training in oil painting when he was in college.

On his transition from oil to ink, Shen says the environment he grew up in played a big role.

He was born in Gushi in Henan province, a town considered a cultural hub.

Calligraphy and ink painting came naturally to him, he says, because people around him had all practised the traditional arts. But when he entered college, oil appealed to him more, so he studied that for four years, only to later get back to ink painting.

His training in oil painting has helped his ink art though, he says. “I use different colours.”

Shen says he’s still young and his style is not yet fixed. His works going to New York seem to suggest that his painting style has changed from narrative to abstract. He’s not sure where he’ll go next, butthe experiments with ink will continue.

Compared to his counterparts, most of whom are oil painters, Shen says ink painters might “feel lonely” in the world of contemporary art. He cites a group show of contemporary artists in which he was the only ink painter. But he’s glad his experiments are helping the traditional art survive.

American art critic Jonathan Goodman writes in the show’s catalogue that both artists “push the boundaries of their art and bring new possibilities alive”.

Michael Allman , who delighted us with his production of Yasmina Reza’s “Art” last year, promises another entertaining production, this time of Shakespearean classic “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

With the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth in 2014 and 400th anniversary of his death last year, the number of productions of his plays has risen significantly worldwide, but Allman says his is just a continuation of the ongoing celebration of Shakespeare’s contribution to theatre and world literature.

“It might have been part of the celebration but last year I was still living in Chiang Mai,” he laughs.

A recent arrival to Bangkok, Ethan Oulton makes his BCT debut as Titania. Photo/Sohtra Salman & Kamran Wilson

“I proposed this play to Bangkok Community Theatre (BCT) because I love Shakespeare and I felt I had a concept that would be interesting, thoughtful, but not exhaustingly difficult. As I get older I’m less and less interested in doing what I think of as ‘Big Theatre’– tons of scenery, yards of costumes, miles of sound and lighting cues. I really want to spend my time with the actors as they create character, relationships and situations.

“I have, however, realised during rehearsals that by being in productions of this play and seeing it performed on stage many times, I’ve, in a way, been preparing for this my whole life.”

From the photos, we can clearly see that this is a wildly entertaining production, and Allman explains his production concept, “We have eight actors playing 20 roles. All of them are playing more than one role and half the cast is taking on three roles. As a director I like working with fewer actors who do more in the shows, but there’s a special reason in this production.”

“Characters fall asleep and wake up to find themselves in many different circumstances. For example, Titania woke up to find she loved an ass; Lysander to discover that he loved Helena, not Hermia.”

“I think everyone finds that from time to time we wake up and find that our circumstances are strange to us. We shouldn’t be who we seem to be. We took this idea and applied it to our performance. So an actor will fall asleep as one character and wake up as another. Then the character has to figure out what is required of him in this new role. All the actors begin the show in night clothes and then put on bits and pieces for the roles they portray.

Ethan Oulton crossgenders as Titania, Queen of the Fairies; Lindsey Higgs also stars as Bottom and Alf Collett is a fairy Moth. Photo/Sohtra Salman & Kamran Wilson

“Let me give you an example: “In the court scenes Ethan Oulton plays Theseus, and Bonnie Zellerbach Hippolyta. Later in the forest, they switch roles and gender – Ethan plays Titania, and Bonnie Oberon. The switch gives them both a chance to explore a different side of their personalities and to stretch themselves as actors. It gives the audience the chance to see different ways that gender roles can be played and defined.”

There are also other gender switches – Puck, Egeus, Bottom and Philostrate are all played by women, and Allman explains, “Today, women of power and authority are much more common and I believe that should be reflected onstage.”

Bangkok’s first private hospital BHN has never been known as a venue for a play, and Allman is happy to explain why he’s decided to use this non-conventional space.

“BNH has been sponsoring some of the shows for BCT and wants to continue the relationship. I’d been wanting to find a non-theatre space to perform in, without special lights, special sets and all that stuff.”

Allman also credits a Minneapolis-based theatre company Ten Thousand Things, saying “They load everything in a van, take it to the performance location, usually a conference room or meeting space, and set everything up and do the show. BNH was offering us a large room to rehearse in and I asked if it could also be used for performances. The answer was yes and so we have a real treat in store for our audiences.”

BOTTOM, THOU ART ADMITTED

– BCT’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs from March 23 to 25 and March 30 to April 1 at BNH Hospital, in Soi Convent, Silom (BTS: Sala Daeng).

– Show time is 7.30pm.

– Tickets are Bt500, available at http://www.BangkokCommunityTheatre.com