Stephen Kaplin (USA) met director Dai Ronghua (China) by chance in 2015. Stephen was doing workshops in China with his shadow puppet theatre and happened to be driving through Yangzhou, where they saw a sign that said there was a puppet theatre there. He knocked on the door and met Dai. Dai is the director of a renowned rod-puppet theatre company, and showed Stephen his puppets and workshop. They got on well straight away and decided to try and collaborate in the future.
One year later, Stephen returned to Yangzhou with a team from New York to collaborate with Dai. In one week they developed a play that combined shadow and rod puppetry called Four Seasons. It was a 20 minute play they are now hoping to expand into a full length production for touring.
Stephen and Dai are planning further ambitious collaborations based that will blend their styles and appeal to people in China and America.
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