Monday in Birmingham

It’s the end of a busy day and I’m about to go to dinner with representatives from the Birmingham Chinatown Lions Club. They have very generously supported 100 Words at the REP through financial sponsorship and hospitality.

Today, the full team were here. The morning was spent creating a literal translation of Shao Wen’s monologue with invaluable input from Li Ruru, who came down from Leeds to be with us for the day. In the afternoon, we were joined by two actors – Oliver Williams and Jennifer Lim. Oliver has worked on 100 Words before and knows China well having grown up in Hong Kong. Jennifer Lim is a British Chinese actor who is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

They’re going to perform Shao Wen’s original 100 word play, which will be performed in both English and Chinese on Wednesday, along with a new 100 word play that Shao Wen wrote at the workshop on Saturday. It was great to hear Chinese rhythms again and to celebrate the strength of the project in bringing together people from a diversity of backgrounds.

Tomorrow we start rehearsals for the other 100 word plays that were written by young Birmingham writers on Saturday – I’m looking forward to reading the finished scripts and meeting the actors.