All the world’s a stage for Tang Shu-wing, the theatre director and actor who will host the second Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival in June.

The festival, launched in 2024 by the Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio, will bring plenty of violent delights to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and WestK venues.

Award-winning dance and theatre troupes from across the globe, including from Hong Kong, Tibet, Guangzhou, Romania, Poland, South Korea and Britain, will present nine unique adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. Audiences can look forward to fresh takes on plays including Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night.

A former dean of drama at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Tang has cemented himself as a cornerstone of Hong Kong’s Shakespearean scene. He has staged Shakespeare plays worldwide, with highlights including a Cantonese version of Titus Andronicus as part of the 2012 World Shakespeare Festival’s “Globe to Globe” event in London, and a non-verbal, three-woman production of King Lear.

He has this to say when asked why we should still watch Shakespeare today.

“Why do we still read the Bible today, or the various sutras of Buddha, or various scriptures of ancient civilisations? Because they’re able to pinpoint certain fundamental philosophies of human existence,” he explains.