Part 1: The Location and the Festival
Junlin Yang
Before I start, let me just insert a disclaimer: Wuzhen didn’t sponsor me to write this series! This series and this article are purely about why I love the Theatre Festival and why I think you should come experience it for yourself someday, and why you should add it to your bucket list!
Welcome to part 1 of the series: Why is the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Worth the Hype? In this series, I wish to share my very own experiences during the theatre festival and why I believe you should come visit someday. In this first article, I want to talk a little about the location and the festival itself.
Let me start with this: I’ve been coming to the festival since I was in fourth grade, which means this year, 2026, will be my 8th year of coming back. Well, I guess that means there must be something about the small town that has attracted me again and again to go back every. Single. Year.
In case you didn’t know, Wuzhen is ONLY less than a 2-hour drive away from Hangzhou, and it’s actually in between Shanghai and Hangzhou! So the first and most obvious reason why we came here in the first place was purely passion and convenience.
What this potentially means: if you’re in either Hangzhou or Shanghai in October, you should definitely consider buying tickets to the theatre festival since it’s so close by! There’s even a high-speed railway station minutes away from the festival if you don’t want to drive. And you don’t have to come during the theatre festival. Come any time during the year!
So yes, the location is appealing, the transportation methods are convenient, but what does this mean for the theatre fans and play nerds out there?
Actually, the first time I came to Wuzhen in fourth grade was because of my mom’s love for watching theatre. And what did Wuzhen have to offer that attracted her? It was an international theatre festival with amazing plays performed by talented actors from all across the globe.
Not only were there plays from famous playwrights in China, we got to watch and experience plays from Austria, Germany, Russia, the United States… the list goes on!
And the plays are spread out over the duration of 10 days in October, with many shows of a single play over several days so people have flexibility when choosing their play-watching schedule.
Something amazing that only Wuzhen has is the unique ranges of the theatres. I think I’ve been to every single one of them, but every single one of them is unique in their own ways. First there’s the 乌镇大剧院 (Wuzhen Grand Theatre), the most famous one and the one where the “big play” of the festival plays every year. But there’s even 国乐剧院 (Ancient Courtyard Theatre), a smaller theatre with everyone huddled closer in a Chinese-style building. There’s 水剧场 (Water Theatre), where you get to literally sit outside by a lake and watch the show on a stage ON THE WATER! There’s 网剧场 (N Theatre), an indoor theatre in a more modern building, where the setting is much more minimalist themed and flexible in terms of design. Directors always find creative ways to make the stage personalized to their play, and the uniqueness of the theatres itself make the entire experience even more memorable and amazing.
And don’t think that you don’t get to be immersed in the theatre experience if you don’t have tickets. There are smaller theatre groups that literally perform out in the open and on the streets all over the scenic area of Wuzhen during the day! Some of my favorites include parades on the street with actors on 2-meter-high stilts, with the most insane large, artistic, and colorful costumes, comedies performed right next to the river with people crowded all around and unstoppable laughter, and modern dance shows by young university theatre students on a stone platform next to the Muxin Museum… there’s so much the theatre festival has to offer!
These reasons aren’t even ALL of the reasons why you should visit Wuzhen. Continue reading my series to find out more about why Wuzhen is worth the hype!
