Deconstructing Theatre for a Panoramic Perspective — Theatre Talk and Workshop Series
Programme OverviewTalks On DramaturgyPlaywriting WorkshopScenography WorkshopTicketing and Enquiries
From scriptwriting, dramaturgy to scenography — discover the core of creating for the theatre from diverse entry points.
What draws us into a piece of theatre as it evolves from an idea into a stage play? Is it the dramatic tension in the script, the unfolding of visual metaphors, or the details in the various segments that slowly take shape?
There may be more than one answer to this: it has to be determined by the interaction between the links, and each plays a significant part.
This series charts a creative journey through three key theatrical disciplines — playwriting, dramaturgy, and scenography.
By exploring the genesis of a story, the construction of narrative logic, the imaginative potential of spatial and visual elements on stage, and the insights of local theatre creators, we invite you to step into multiple entry points of theatre-making and find more creative possibilities with us.
Playwriting Workshop
Speaker：Ivan Kwok
Date：25/2, 4/3, 11/3,18/3, 25/3/2026 (Wed)
Venue：Function Room AC2, Level 4, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Time：7:30 pm
Talks On Dramaturgy
Speakers： Kingston Lo, Vee Leong
Date：28/2 (Sat), 1/3, 8/3/2026 (Sun)
Venue：Lecture Hall, Hong Kong Space Museum
Time：7:30 pm
Scenography Workshop
Speakers： Cindy Ho, Jan Wong
Date：5/3,12/3, 19/3 (Thu)
Venue： Function Room AC2, Level 4, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Time：7:30 pm
Each Session $80 (Free Seating) (In Cantonese)
Each session will run for about 1 hour and 30 minutes
The programme does not represent the views of Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The presenter reserves the right to change the programmes.
Talks On Dramaturgy
Speakers: Kingston Lo and Vee Leong
Dates:
Session 1 – 28.2.2026 (Sat): Dramaturgy from a Director’s Perspective – Kingston Lo
Session 2 – 1.3.2026 (Sun): Interdisciplinary Arts and Dramaturgy – Vee Leong
Session 3 – 8.3.2026 (Sun): A Dialogue on Dramaturgy – Kingston Lo × Vee Leong
Venue： Lecture Hall, Hong Kong Space Museum
Time：7:30 pm
Dramaturgy from a Director's Perspective – Kingston Lo
Reflecting on his own creative journey from a director’s point of view, Lo will share insights into creative processes with dramaturgs, exploring moments of communication, collaboration, and key decision-making. Examples will be taken from theatre productions in Hong Kong to find out the actual roles and positioning of dramaturgs and how the creative ecosystem in Hong Kong shapes their possibilities for engagement.
Interdisciplinary Arts and Dramaturgy – Vee Leong
This talk introduces the rise and evolution of interdisciplinary arts within the contexts of contemporary theatre and contemporary arts. How do dialogues, transcriptions, collaging, and mirroring among different media generate new creative processes and forms? What kinds of works emerge, and how should we appreciate these innovations – within what kind of framework, or from what perspective?
A Dialogue and Experience Sharing on Dramaturgy — Kingston Lo × Vee Leong
This dialogue session explores dramaturgy as both a methodology and a creative position that involves multiple aspects. The speakers will draw from their respective creative journeys and study a dramaturg’s multiple roles and ways of participation, from production and conceptualisation to rehearsal, and consider how Hong Kong’s artistic landscape fosters room for the development of dramaturgical thinking.
Speaker's biography
Kingston Lo
Kingston Lo is a freelance theatre practitioner who performs the multifunctional roles of playwright, director, drama critic, and lyricist.
His direction of The Bucket for the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre won him Best Director (Comedy/Farce) at the 33rd Hong Kong Drama Awards, Best Director at the 15th Hong Kong Theatre Libre, and Director of the Year at the IATC (HK) Critics’ Awards 2024. His script Century Egg & Pork Congee won Outstanding Script (Hong Kong Region) award at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Drama Script Writing Competition. His play Everything Begins with the Wave, which he directed and performed in, won Best Individual Performance Award at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival Emerging Theatre Artists’ Competition in 2021.
Lo is one of the co-founders of Theatre Formula, with his focus on devising and directing.
Vee Leong
Vee Leong is a writer-director in text-based theatre and intermedia art. She has been commissioned or featured in the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New Vision Arts Festival of Hong Kong, Taipei Arts Festival, Manchester International Festival, and Spielart Festival in Munich. Leong was Resident Director of On & On Theatre Workshop between 2013 and 2018, and is currently its Co-Artistic Director while teaching dramaturgy at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She has won multiple IATC (HK) Critics' Awards and Hong Kong Theatre Libre Best Director Awards. She is known for her sound-based theatre inspired by contemporary arts. She is also actively engaged in Hong Kong-Taiwan artistic exchange. Her artistic research explores speech, durational performance strategies, and action-based dramaturgy.
Playwriting Workshop
Speaker: Ivan Kwok
Session 1 – 25.2.2026 (Wed): Where stories begin – The instinct to tell
Session 2 – 4.3.2026 (Wed): Let the characters speak – The birth of dialogue
Session 3 – 11.3.2026 (Wed): The structure of drama – From emotion to conflict
Session 4 – 18.3.2026 (Wed): Scenes and rhythm – How theatre breathes
Session 5 – 25.3.2026 (Wed): Draw from Life, write the play within you
Venue： Function Room AC2, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Time：7:30 pm
Workshop Overview
Playwriting Workshop: For Those Who Know How to Tell Stories
We all know how to tell stories — but do we know how to let stories "speak for themselves"?
While fiction, prose, and drama may seem to share common roots, their structures and narrative logic differ vastly. Fiction can stand back and observe; prose externalises sentiments; but drama demands the characters to speak for themselves.
This playwriting workshop invites participants to begin with conversations in everyday life, dreams, and the subconscious, then proceed to taking a new look at dialogues and dramatic thinking. Rather than abstract theory, it emphasizes practical exercises, short adaptations, and improvisation to explore how characters speak and how emotions and actions resonate.
In these five sessions, you'll rediscover the dynamics of dialogue, understand yourself more, listen to your characters, and take pleasure in every line you write.
Session 1: Where Stories Begin — The Instinct to Tell
Theme: The first step from everyday life to drama
Content:
"We tell stories every day": a narrative exercise to draw on dreams, conversations, and memories
Prose vs drama: Who's speaking? Who's listening?
Exercise: turn a "slice of daily conversation" into an opening scene of a play
Session 2: Let the Characters Speak — The Birth of Dialogue
Theme: From "what I want to say" to "what the characters say"
Content:
The three layers of dialogue: subconscious, rational, emotional
The art of listening: how to turn a character's words into the pulse of a play
Exercise: adapt a prose passage into a dialogue between two persons
Session 3: The Structure of Drama — From Emotion to Conflict
Theme: Why is it harder to write drama than prose?
Content:
The dramatic triangle: desire, obstacle, transformation
Character's action logic vs author's emotional impulse
Exercise: devise what a character "wants" and what they "can't have"
Session 4: Scenes and Rhythm — The Breathing Theatre
Theme: From script to stage
Content:
“A story you can see”: imagining stage space and physical action
Rhythm and silent moments: how silence and action are more powerful than the spoken word
Exercise: rewrite a "phone conversation" into a dramatic scene
Session 5: Draw from Life, Write the Play Within You
Theme: Drama as a way of understanding the self
Content:
Transforming personal experiences into dramatic archetypes
How to "find yourself and go beyond yourself" in a story
Group sharing: one-page script reading presentations
Speaker's biography
Ivan Kwok
Ivan Kwok is currently the Manager of the Theatre Literature Department of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre (HKRep).
Principle, a play that he wrote, was nominated for Best Script at the Hong Kong Theatre Libre in 2018, the Hong Kong Drama Awards, and the Shanghai One Drama Awards in 2019. The film version of Principle was awarded Best Screenplay at the Asian Academy Creative Awards (Hong Kong Region) in 2022. His True Lies won Best Script at the Hong Kong Theatre Libre in 2019, and was nominated for Script/Playwright of the Year at the IATC (HK) Critics' Awards in 2020. The Putonghua version of Principle was among The Beijing News's "Top Emerging Plays of the Year.”
*Ivan Kwok's participation in this production was made possible by the kind permission of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre
Photo courtesy of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre
Scenography Workshop
Speakers: Cindy Ho and Jan Wong
Date：
Session 1—5.3.2026 (Thu) : Costume Design
Session 2—12.3.2026 (Thu) : Spatial Design
Session 3—19.3.2026 (Thu) : Costume × Space
Venue：Function Room AC2, Level 4, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Time：7:30 pm
Workshop Overview
How do costume and spatial design interact to create non-verbal narratives in performance?
This three-part workshop will deconstruct and integrate various elements of scenography, and explore how the dialogue between costume and space can unlock creativity and realise the boundless possibilities of theatrical design.
Costume Design
The speaker will take the audience on a walk-through of her works to analyse how costume design functions as a narrative medium — how texture, silhouette, and bodily movement can convey the characters’ emotions, show period and background of the drama, and shape the storyline. Participants will also engage in a hands-on component involving prototype-making, so as to give them a first-hand experience of the process behind sculpting form and presence through costume.
Spatial Design
What is a performance space? How is an audience’s perspective shaped? By drawing from his own works, the speaker will explain the varying audience perspectives, trace the design process and collaboration with other creative leads. Through clear and accessible analysis, participants will come to understand the role of spatial design in a performance — how every object and setting shape the perception and associations of both performer and viewer. This session offers an in-depth look into how spatial/scenographic environments are conceived and realised.
Costume × Space
This session brings together the two key elements of design – costume and space – by juxtaposing characters and stage space. Then from a seminal idea, the creativity journey begins, as time, place, people, and narrative of the performance come together and gradually take form through scenographic thinking.
Speaker's biography
Cindy Ho
Cindy Ho graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, majoring in Stage and Costume Design. She specialises in intermedia collaboration, with works spanning drama, opera, and dance. She co-directed the musical Re: Bluebeard's Castle, and designed the costumes in La Bohème, Next to Normal, and It's Only the End of the World among others. She has collaborated with the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre on over ten productions, including After Life and Attempts on Her Life. Ho's design work in contemporary dance is equally acclaimed, as seen in the visual dynamics in many productions by the City Contemporary Dance Company. Her innovative design for Marriage has won multiple awards, a testimony to her strong foundation in theatre aesthetics. Ho was Artist-in-Residence and Guest Lecturer in Stage Design at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts' Theatre Design Department, and continues to work as an independent stage artist.
Jan Wong
Specialising in spatial design, his design practice spans theatre, dance, musicals, exhibitions and opening programmes.
In recent years, his theatre, concerts and dance designs were seen in Hu Xueyan, My Dear, Scapin in Jiānghú, Chapter 2023, Love and Samsara, Princess Der Ling and Empress Cixi, Principle, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store, Skylight, Fly Poor to the Moon, Journey to the West, Miss Julie, The Doctor, Le Fils, The Play That Goes Wrong, Nezha: Untold Solitude, The Legend of Lanling,Kung Fu Artistry and many more.
He also actively involved in spatial planning for large-scale exhibitions and opening programmes, collaborating with organisations including HKLSS, CHUBB, HSBC, and others. From 2024 to 2025, served as spatial designer for the Hong Kong Pavilions at the 20th and 21st China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair, as well as the 18th and 19th Hangzhou Cultural & Creative Industry Expo.
Wong has received many awards in different categories, including stage design awards for The Island Whispers, Reveries of the Red Chamber, Hu XueYan, My Dear (2018 revival), Nezha: Untold Solitude, and Don Quixote. In 2024, he won the Best Make-up and Styling Award at the Hong Kong Drama Awards for Scapin in Jiānghú, Chap. 2023. He won the Award for Young Artist (Drama) at the 19th Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in 2025.
Deconstructing Theatre for a Panoramic Perspective — Theatre Talk and Workshop Series
DATE
VENUE
PRICE
25.02.2026 (Wed) - 25.03.2026 (Wed) 19:30
Playwriting Workshop: Function Room AC2, Level 4, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Tickets available at URBTIX from 20 January onwards.
Half-price tickets available for senior citizens aged 60 and above, people with disabilities and the minder, full-time students and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients. (Limited tickets available for CSSA recipients on a first-come, first served basis.)
Group Booking Discount
Each purchase of 4-9 standard tickets
10% off
Each purchase of 10-19 standard tickets
15% off
Each purchase of 20 or more standard tickets
20% off
Package Booking Discount
Each purchase of standard tickets for 2 different sessions of talks / workshops
10% off
Each purchase of standard tickets for 3 different sessions of talks / workshops
15% off
Each purchase of standard tickets for 4 or more different sessions of talks / workshops
20% off
Programme Enquiries: 2268 7325
Ticketing Enquiries and Customer Service: 3166 1100
Telephone Booking: 3166 1288
Internet Booking: www.urbtix.hk
Mobile App: URBTIX
The programme does not represent the views of Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The presenter reserves the right to change the programmes.
TICKETING
DATE
VENUE
PRICE
25.02.2026 (Wed) - 25.03.2026 (Wed) 19:30
Playwriting Workshop: Function Room AC2, Level 4, Administration Building, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
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