Theatre review: Acceptance

17-year-old Hong Kong Chinese violin prodigy Angela Chan (Jennifer Leong) has been studying music in America under a scholarship for the last year, and is now applying to an Ivy League university. She’s been invited to what she assumes is an admissions interview, only to find the Dean of Admissions, Birch Coffin (Teresa Banham,) waiting to interrogate her on her moral character. After spotting some gaps in her application Birch has discovered that Angela left her first Performing Arts High School after accusing a teacher of rape, an accusation that was never proven and has been hushed up; Birch is concerned the girl might be a fantasist and a potential liability. Angela turns to the college’s new Diversity Officer, Mercy (Debbie Korley,) hoping for a champion against an admissions officer she believes has made her mind up against her already.

Theatre review: Shangri-La

Amy Ng's debut play is named Shangri-La after an imaginary place - or at least one that used to be imaginary, until an area of Tibet was renamed after the Capra film Lost Horizon's setting, in a canny grab for tourist dollars. In a play that jumps between two periods in the life of Bunny (Julia Sandiford,) the real Shangri-La is where she lives in 2001, the 14-year-old daughter of a shaman who runs a failing guest house. An encounter with an Irish photographer gives Bunny the seeds of a love of photography that'll endure into adulthood; but it also leads to an event that'll make her loath to return to the Himalayas when we meet her as an adult in 2014, working as a guide for an ethical travel company in Beijing.