Episode Description

With Centuries of tradition to draw on, puppet theater is still a popular form of entertainment here in Taiwan having made the successful move onto television and the big screen over the last 40 years.

Of course, the enthusiasm for Taiwanese puppet theater has long been mostly contained within Taiwan’s boarders, but on today’s Taiwan Talk we speak with one American expat who says he wants to take it to international audiences by marketing an English language version overseas.

 

Guest: Matt Smith, who has been composing music scores for Jingguang Puppet Theater for years now as the managing director for Taiwan based music production company Zoetrope Cultural Media.

Recommended Reading

Here’s a useful article that gives a broad overview of the history of puppet theater in Taiwan. It’s a little old, but still a useful primer. And here’s another article covering this history that focuses specifically on the Huang family that we mention during the interview.

Here’s the Facebook page for the Jingguang Puppet Theater: the theater we discuss during the interview.

Here’s a page the explains a little bit more about the series that Matt Smith will be working to translate into English and then market internationally.

This is a couple of video’s featuring music made by Zoetrope Cultural Media over the opening and closing credits of one of the shows from Jinguang theater.

How to listen

Taiwan Talk is broadcast during the 8am and 6pm newscasts on ICRT FM 100 on both Mondays and Tuesdays. Listen over the radio or stream it by clicking on the “live” button at the top of the ICRT homepage.

You can also download episodes of this program online at the ICRT website and on the show’s iTunes page. New episodes are added every Wednesday.

You can learn more about Taiwan Talk at the show page here.

You can also find past episodes on this blog here.

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