Yellow Earth British East Asian Theatre
Yellow Earth inspires, creates, produces, nurtures and champions the best of British East Asian Theatre. They aim to make the invisible visible by bringing unheard voices and stories to audiences worldwide, by taking timeless classics and approaching them with fresh eyes. They seek out and nurture east asian artistic talents, and create opportunities for these actors, writers and directors to make bold, imaginative and thought provoking theatre.
Hello Earth theatre was formed in 1995 by five British East Asian actors, Kwong Loke, Kumiko Mendl, Veronica Needa, David KS Tse and Tom Wu. The company sought to develop work that would widen the choice and type of roles being offered to East Asian actors at that time and to create work that brought together their physical skills and western drama school training to present plays that explored their cultural heritage.
Over its 21 years history, Yellow Earth has worked with many of the best East Asian actors, writers, directors, designers to create a wide range of award winning work from new writing to bold adaptations of classics; from family friendly shows to participatory and site responsive work. Yellow Earth also provides professional development for East Asian artists while inspiring the next generation to get involve in the arts.
The company is named after the seminal Chinese film, Yellow Earth directed by Chen Kaige, with cinematography by Zhang Yimou. The film was part of the 5th generation of "new wave" mainland Chinese film makers to come out of the 80's and its combination of poetic lyricism and dark drama inspired by many artists and audiences around the world.