Chinese 'Hamlet' comes to Grand Valley

Grand Valley State University's special guest drama students from Shanghai, China, will give two performances of their version of "Hamlet" in "Who Killed the King? Chinese Variations on Hamlet." The one-hour performances are in Mandarin, but knowledge of the Chinese language is not necessary for audiences to enjoy the performances.

Admission is free to both performances: Monday, October 6, at 7 p.m., in Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center, 401 W. Fulton, on Grand Valley’s Pew Grand Rapids Campus; and Tuesday, October 7, at 2:30 p.m., in the Cook-DeWitt Center on the Allendale Campus.

Donations toward earthquake recovery in the Szchuen Province of China will be collected at the GVSU Box Office from September 26 through October 5 in conjunction with the Shakespeare Festival production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Grand Valley students were in China during the earthquake. Though far from the epicenter, they felt the emotional after-effects that blanketed the country and felt the need to do something positive toward recovery efforts. Donations will be presented to the East China Normal University group at the end of their Grand Valley stay.

The Chinese students will also be traveling to Grand Rapids Public Schools as part of their residency. On Thursday, October 9, they will give a performance at City middle/High School at 12:30 p.m.

The performances are part of an exchange program with ECNU, a GVSU Partner Institution. In May, students from Grand Valley’s Theatre program visited the university in Shanghai to give performances of Bard to Go, a 50-minute collage of various Shakespeare plays. The educational outreach program has traveled throughout Michigan during the seven years since it began. The first international performances began in 2005, with a trip to schools in Kingston, Jamaica.

The Chinese visitors and performances are sponsored by the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival, Padnos International Center and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

For more information, call (616) 331-3668, or visit www.gvsu.edu/shakes .

Photo: Students from the drama program at East China Normal University and GVSU celebrate the Bard to Go visit to Shanghai in Summer 2008