Penghao Theatre Introduction

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Humans have a kind of fundamental need, both spiritual and material, for beauty, love, expression, creativity, giving, self-realization and selftranscendence. In brief, but oh-so-real moments, we have glimpses of the divine realm from which these things come. We feel an unbound and climactic joy, as if we need not wait until the end of days to inhabit the Promised Land, as if paradise waits for us on chance nights of inspiration beyond red stage curtains. Once we have come in contact with these things, our determination is set, we are blessed by optimism and feel a reverence and tolerance for the privileged lives we lead.

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Theater is the great never-ending festival of the living, it encompasses that eternal realm in which our souls may abide, and it describes the very essence of the human condition.

up in the face of fear and impoverishment to offer their creations to posterity. Every common person also has the right and freedom to rid himself of his penurious existence.

Theater’s ultimate concern is the convergence of literature and humanity. It is the living record of man’s varied and multitudinous attempts to make sense of his surroundings. The artists explore the far reaches of human possibility and blaze a trail by which humanity may be elevated to ever higher realms.

“PengHaoRen” is an ordinary citizen, a commoner.

The Chinese word refers to a kind of weed, but the meaning we seek comes from a Li Bai poem in which he wrote “My head thrown back with laughter I left, none could call me a penghao (common) man.” We invite common folk to take to the stage and, through the power of theater, transform the mundane circumstances of their everyday life into the transcendent dramatic tab-

In any age, it is these men and women that stand

leaus which we call on for inspiration and hope.

“PengHaoRen” is an ordinary citizen, a commoner. The Chinese word refers to a kind of weed, but the meaning we seek comes from a Li Bai poem in which he wrote “My head thrown back with laughter I left, none could call me a penghao (common) man.” Here we take in an opposite mean.

We invite common folk to take to the stage and, through the power of theater, transform the mundane circumstances of their everyday life into the transcendent dramatic tableaus which we call on for inspiration and hope.

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