2 April 2025 

The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK) hosted the Arts@HSUHK event, “Play Reading X Multimedia”, today (2 April). This event showcased HSUHK students’ reinterpretation of the renowned musical Man of La Mancha through a play reading. A symposium held after the event further enriched the overall experience by inviting academics and audience members to embark on an exploration of dreams and reality.

The play was translated by Professor Gilbert Fong, Emeritus Dean and Professor, and Dr Shelby Chan, Associate Dean, both from the School of Translation and Foreign Languages at HSUHK. The production was directed by Mr Hardy Tsoi, a distinguished director and playwright. Eight HSUHK students, under the guidance of Mr Tsoi, engaged in meticulous preparation to present this classic work in a play-reading format with professional lighting, with the hope that the play evokes the profound message of the original piece while providing the audience with new insights.

Man of La Mancha is adapted from the work of Dale Wasserman and originally premiered on Broadway in New York in 1965, where it achieved remarkable success, winning both the Tony Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards that year. The play employs a play-within-a-play technique to depict the work of the esteemed Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes from the Western Renaissance era, specifically his masterpiece, Don Quixote.