Wichmann-Walczak earned BA degrees in Theatre and Chinese from the University of Iowa, and MA and PhD degrees in Performance and Asian Theatre respectively from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She acted professionally with the Iowa Repertory Theatre, the Hawai‘i Theatre Festival, and the General Assistance Center of the Pacific; was a board member, director, and actor for Kumu Kahua Theatre during the first 10 years of its existence; taught improvisational and “work-shopped” (now “devised”) theatre at the Hawai‘i State Prison; and taught acting and dance at Windward Community College, before undertaking the field work for her doctoral dissertation on the aural performance of jingju (Beijing/Peking “opera”) in PR China, 1979-1981. While carrying out that research, Wichmann-Walczak was accepted as the personal student of Master Mei Lanfang’s disciple Madam Shen Xiaomei, and performed the title role in an iconic Mei play in Nanjing & nationally via film & television, becoming the first non-Chinese to perform jingju in the People’s Republic of China. Since joining the UHM faculty in 1981, she has worked with Madam Shen to produce an intensive jingju training program every 4 years, each culminating in public performances of a major play in English which she has translated & directed. To date Wichmann-Walczak and Shen have produced one modern, three “newly-written historical,” and four classical jingju plays at UHM; at Chinese invitation, 3 classical plays have undertaken performance tours of PR China.
Wichmann-Walczak’s research concerns issues of creative authority in jingju, especially as they relate to the 1950s national reform of xiqu (Chinese “opera”) in China, and has received the support of the Fulbright Foundation; previous research support has been provided by the Asian Cultural Council, the U.S. Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Freeman Foundation. Her most recent English-language publications include the book chapters: “Re-acting an Actor’s Reaction to the Occupation: the Beijing Jingju Company’s Mei Lanfang,” in Sino-Japanese Transculturation: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the End of the Pacific War; and “Actors and Role Types, Sex and Gender, and Creative Interpretation in Jingju,” in On Stage: The Art of Beijing Opera; and “Remembering the Past in the Shanghai Jingju Company’s King Lear,” in Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia, and Cyberspace.
Major awards: China’s National Xiqu Music Association’s Kong Sanchuan Award for excellence in research, creation, and performance; China’s National Festival of Jingju’s Golden Chrysanthemum Award for outstanding achievements in promoting and developing jingju; commendations from the Hawai‘i State House of Representatives and Senate. University recognition: UH System’s Fujio Matsuda Fellowship.
Retired Spring 2018
