Drama

Janice Poon is the Discipline Leader of both Playwriting and Dramaturgy major programmes. She inaugurates, develops and teaches both the MFA and BFA major programmes in Dramaturgy at the HKAPA. These new programmes, launched in 2020 and 2022 respectively, are the first of their kind offered by an Asian institute of higher education in the performing arts. Janice graduated from the MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media programme at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. Her research interests include new dramaturgy of contemporary theatre making, transdisciplinary and transcultural art making, digital theatre in cyberspace, new play development and performance text. She has been invited as a guest speaker and workshop master at international theatre conferences and festivals in the UK, Germany, U.S., Canada, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Spain, Dubai, Egypt, Azerbaijan, to name a few. She is a member of the International Playwright’s Forum and the Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts of the International Theatre Institute/UNESCO, International Dramaturgy Lab and Asian Dramaturg’s Network. She has published and edited eight theatre books, including Theatre in Consumer Society and Collected Plays of Poon Wai-sum. Her other publications include book chapters in (Asian) Dramaturgs’ Network: Sensing, Complexity, Tracing, and Doing, Korean Theatre Review and the ADN Re/View (Vol.2). Her articles appeared in major newspapers and cultural and art media platforms.

Janice is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Hong Kong Dramatists, a veteran theatre artist and cultural practitioner actively engaged in curating cultural exchange projects. She is devoted in creating international collaborations of transdisciplinary and transcultural projects through dramaturgy, playwriting, directing, curating and art making. She has appeared in festivals such as Hong Kong Arts Festival and New Vision Arts Festival and also inaugurated the first Literary Department in Hong Kong theatre. Janice's contribution to the art and theatre scene has been highly recognised and she has been awarded the Asian Cultural Council Lee Hysan Foundation Fellowship and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government’s Chevening Scholarship for her outstanding achievements.

Janice was a resident artist at The Lark Play Development Center (New York), Odin Teatret (Denmark) and the Banff Playwrights Lab(Canada). Her works had been presented in major cities in Europe, U.S., Canada, Singapore, China and Taiwan. The Room was selected as part of “30 Years 30 Plays Festival” (New York), H.O.M.E. was a finalist of the Ronald Duncan Playwriting Competition(London) , And Then, I Float was awarded four major awards and nominated Best Play at the Hong Kong Theatre Libre(2014), and was invited as part of a cultural exchange project at the SCHILLERTAGE festival of National Theatre Mannheim(2015); her work Small Waisted has won the Multi-cultural Short Plays Competition organised by the International Playwright Forum of International Theatre Institute/UNESCO(2016). Another work Fleet was commissioned by M1 Chinese Theatre Festival in Singapore(2016), 
In a Breath was commissioned by Cultural Presentations of Leisure and Cultural Services Department. Other theatre works include Stragglers presented by LCSD and Witness for the Prosecution presented by Emperor Entertainment Group. Her recent week-long digital theatre performance of Pornography by Simon Stephens was named “Featured Work of 2020” by the International Association of Theatre Critics(Hong Kong).

An advocate for new writing and dramaturgy for contemporary theatre, she co-curated a three-year project Dramaturgy and Beyond with West Kowloon Cultural District. Her recent performances include a lecture performance with an artistic swimmer titled Flow to Unfold. Some of her prominent dramaturgy works include Mr. Blank and Stream of Dust by City Contemporary Dance Company and Nezha: Untold Solitude by Hong Kong Dance Company.