The Peasant Prince: Based on the book by Li Cunxin

This extraordinary play for young people is an adaptation of Li Cunxin's picture book The Peasant Prince - the true story of Mao's Last Dancer.

Adapted by Monkey Baa, Australia's leading theatre company for young audiences, The Peasant Prince has toured nationally, performing to tens of thousands of young people and their families throughout rural and regional Australia.

The production was awarded Most Outstanding Production for Children (the Glugs), Best Production for Children (Sydney Theatre Awards) and a Drover's Award for Best Touring Production (Australian Performing Arts and Producers Awards).

Li, a 10-year-old boy, is plucked from his village in rural China and sent to a ballet academy in the big city. He leaves everything and everyone he loves, including his family. Over years of gruelling training, he transforms from an impoverished peasant to a giant of the international dance scene. What does he find along the way?

The Peasant Prince is a remarkable true story of courage, resilience and unwavering hope.

'A poignant gem' Sydney Arts Guide

'Vital, exuberant, aspirational, and inspirational' Australian Stage

'Monkey Baa Theatre Company has created another wonderful work for children' Broadway World

LI CUNXIN was born into an extremely poor peasant family in Qingdoa, a remote commune village in Northern China in 1961. In 1972 Madame Mao, wife of Chairman Mao, decided to revive the Peking Dance Academy and sent men into the countryside to find suitable children to attend. At age eleven, Cunxin, with no former experience, was chosen to become a dancer on the basis of his physique. After seven years of hard, sometimes cruel training at the Beijing Dance Academy, he received one of two artistic scholarships to study in America. The first cultural delegation to China introduced Cunxin to the artistic director of the Houston Ballet Academy, who would become his mentor for the next sixteen years. Cunxin's book, Mao's Last Dancer, took two and half years to write and has become a huge bestseller in Australia (reaching number one in non-fiction) and is currently on its fourteenth print-run since September, 2003.

EVA DI CESARE graduated from Victorian College of the Arts in 1989 and is one of the founding members of Monkey Baa Theatre Company. She directed Jackie French and Bruce Whatley's Diary of a Wombat, which won the Glug Award for Outstanding Presentation for Children. Cesare also wrote and directed Where the Streets Had a Name, based on the novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah. She has co-adapted Sydney Theatre Award winning play Li Cunxin's The Peasant Prince, Helpmann award winning plays Jackie French's Hitler's Daughter and Sonya Hartnett's Thursday's Child, Tim Winton's The Bugalugs Bum Thief, Morris Gleitzman's Worry Warts, Gillian Rubinstein's The Fairy's Wings, Stephen Michael King's Milli, Jack and the Dancing Cat, Susanne Gervay's I Am Jack, Elizabeth Fensham's Goodbye Jamie Boyd, Duncan Ball's Emily Eyefinger, and Jackie French and Bruce Whatley's Pete the Sheep and Josephine Wants to Dance. She also co-wrote and directed the 2013 Opera House show Babies Proms Series and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (with Sandra Eldridge) for CDP Theatre Producers and Simon Tedeschi Pianist and Prankster for Monkey Baa. In 2017 Cesare was awarded a Sydney Theatre Award for 20 years of excellence and extraordinary service to the children and young people of Australia.

SANDRA ELDRIDGE is a WAAPA acting graduate and has a Master of Arts (Practice) for directing CSU. She is one of the founders and Creative Directors of Monkey Baa, where she directs, writes, acts and facilitates workshops around Australia and overseas. Monkey Baa has adapted over 18 works for the stage. Her credits as a director with Monkey Baa: Goodbye Jamie Boyd, The Prospectors, I am Jack, Hitler's Daughter (2007 Helpmann Award for Best Children's Presentation, 2006 Drover Award, 2012 Glug Award) and Thursday's Child (2009 Helpmann Award for Best Children's Presentation). Other directing credits include: The Grapes of Wrath and Mill on the Floss for WAAPA; Kindertransport and Maggie Stone for Darlinghurst Theatre Company. She co-wrote and directed Voyage to the Deep for the Australian national Maritime Museum and Monkey Tales for the Chinese Gardens, and co-adapted Snugglepot and Cuddlepie for CDP Theatre Productions. She wrote and acted in The Unknown Soldier (2015 Glug Award), which toured NSW and the US in 2017. As an actor she has numerous credits in theatre, film, TV and radio and has been a proud member of MEAA since 1983. In 2017 the Sydney Theatre Awards granted her a special award for excellence and Extraordinary Service to the young people of Australia.

TIM MCGARRY, a WAAPA Graduate, works as an actor, director, dramaturge and devising theatre maker in Sydney. Between 2005-2017 Tim was a Co-Creative Director and Producer at Monkey Baa Theatre Company, one of Australia's largest touring companies for young audiences, where he co adapted and produced nearly 20 new Australian works. He directed the award winning The Peasant Prince, assistant directed on Tim Winton's The Bugalugs Bum Thief and was the remount director on The Unknown Soldier, a new Australian play written by Sandra Eldridge. He was dramaturgical consultant on Randa Abdel-Fattah's Where the Streets Had a Name. In 2013 McGarry was engaged by CDP Producers to write and direct several works for the SOH Baby Proms Program including Swing Baby Swing and The Nutcracker. He co-devised The Pirate Ship (script) for Urban Myth Theatre Company SA, A More Fortunate Life for Theatre Ink and EscapAIDS for the One Night Stand Theatre Company. Most recently he co-devised a new work for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Simon Tedeschi and Eva Di Cesare called Who Needs A Conductor Anyway. A proud member of Actor's Equity, McGarry is passionate about interrogating, developing and devising new Australian work. In 2017 McGarry was awarded a Sydney Theatre Award for 20 years of excellence and extraordinary service to the children and young people of Australia.