Hong Kong Repertory Theatre 2026-27 Season: Re・verse

Hong Kong Repertory Theatre 2026-27 Season
Re・verse
Advance Booking from 26 March with up to 30% Discount 
 

【HKRep】The Hong Kong Repertory Theatre announced its 2026-27 season with the theme “Re・verse”on 24^th March, with diverse productions of local classics, international dramas, original new works, Black Box, Text Testing Zone, Project Kite and Education Hub, as well as Mainland tours, they all move along accordingly—or shall we say, they continue to extend and expand to our surprise and delight. 
 
HKRep Artistic Director Poon Wai Sum says, “who among us wishes to “lie flat”? I don’t know, but as a theatremaker, if “no ill fortune and trouble hinder his path to high office”, the theatre will crumble into boredom. Our motto this season, with similar terseness as last year’s, uses just one single word: Reverse.”
 
Highlights of the 2026-27 Season:
 

• Hirokazu Kore-eda’s classic After Life returns to the stage to critical acclaim, inviting audiences to contemplate the weight of life itself;
• Re-reading noble aspirations from the hero’s diary—The Diary of Song 2026—and witnessing all of life’s absurdities;
• An urban legend about chivalry and justice—Modern Wuxia: To Turn, To Be;
• Leon Ko and Fong Chun Kit reunite, unveiling A new original Cantonese musical—Operation Oops! - the Musical;
• Let’s plunge into the real-time multiverse of Ah Q, combining stage performance and real-time video—An Unofficial True Story of Ah Q;
• Nobel Prize-winning dramatist Harold Pinter’s iconic work Betrayal, unveiling a Rashomon of a marriage;
• A Black Box production promises alternative interpretations on love and human bonds—31 Years—Can love transcend an age gap of 31 years?
• A century-old masterpiece about saints and mortals—Saint Joan;
• Helmed by Artistic Director Poon Wai Sum, Text Testing Festival features three original, new works in even more concentrated and essential formats;
• Commissioned by and co-produced with WestK Performing Arts, HSBC Life presents The Impossible Trial – a musical will tour to Shanghai in 2026—for one stop only.

Main Stage Productions
 

After Life
Olivier Award-winning Playwright Jack Thorne adapted Hirokazu Kore-eda’s classic film After Life, which opened at London’s National Theatre in 2021. The HKRep Cantonese version that premiered in the 2024‒25 season was a blockbuster. This season we remount After Life, continuing to ponder memory and experience, laying bare our true feelings to the audience as we contemplate life and death. (22^nd May to 7^th June 2026 at Hong Kong City Hall Theatre)
 
The Diary of Song 2026
The Diary of Song premiered in 2017, receiving Best Original Script and Outstanding Production of the year at the 27^th Hong Kong Drama Awards. Starting in 2022, its screen version has played in multiple cities, becoming a best-kept secret among theatre aficionados. This new version helmed by Poon Wai Sum assembles heroes from China’s great mountains, accompanied by Chan Wai Fat’s brand-new music and songs that capture their dilemma—whether to go forth or turn back—so aptly in words and in action, crafting a new classic of a movable diary. (18^th July to 2^nd August 2026 at Hong Kong City Hall Theatre)
 
Modern Wuxia: To Turn, To Be
The martial arts novelist’s world might have faded away, but neon lights of our reality linger. At age 53, our protagonist quits his job and goes to Songshan to study martial arts for three whole years. After his return, equipped with physical skills totally out of sync with the times, he tries his best to exercise chivalry in a concrete jungle. He uses French fries as darts, assembles cardboard for a couch, gives his best shot as a loner in the martial arts world countering jeers and rejections. In the real world, there are no villains to be vanquished, only life’s bone-crushing pressures. Yet he stubbornly resists them all, vowing to etch out what “chivalry” means in our material, mundane world. This is a fable for adults and a heroic epic about a loser. Listen to the winds, perhaps you can still catch an echo of the warrior’s cry. (19^th September to 4^th October 2026 at Hong Kong City Hall Theatre)
 
Operation Oops! - the Musical
Ordinary working men long to buy their own homes, but sky-high property prices make it impossible. Backed into a corner, they vow to make a big gamble—kidnapping the developer! This group of ragtags may have a plan, but they have no foresight. Will they succeed or fail? Renowned Macao playwright Lawrence Lei I Leong adapted his prize-winning novel Wolf Hunt as a musical, collaborating with a group of crème-de-la-crème artists. Leon Ko and Fong Chun Kit—the winning duo of such hits as The Impossible Trial and Sing Out—reunite in this musical in which songs evoke memories and farcical plots contend justice, deriding the desperation of urbanites today. (23^rd November to 5^th December 2026 at Hong Kong City Hall Theatre. A co-production with Stage Evolution Production)
 
Operation Oops! - the Musical is proudly sponsored by Shun Hing Group.
 
An Unofficial True Story of Ah Q
 
HKRep Artistic Director Poon Wai Sum adapts a stage version in Cantonese of Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q, enabling the protagonist to traverse time and space landing in contemporary Hong Kong. He eats Shunde grass carp, sings pop songs, waxes philosophically about benevolence, justice and morals. Is everything a dream or his aspiration? Director Li Jianjun has helmed the New Youth Group in creating a widely acclaimed “Posthuman Trilogy”. An Unofficial True Story of Ah Q extends this unique approach, combining stage performance and real-time video, examining every changing moment in the theatre space. (10^th to 17^th January 2027 at East Kowloon Cultural Centre The Hall. A co-production with New Youth Group) 
 
An Unofficial True Story of Ah Q is sponsored by Chow Sang Sang. 
 
Betrayal
Nobel Prize-winning dramatist Harold Pinter’s iconic work Betrayal premiered in 1978, won an Olivier Award and has since been staged all over the world. This Cantonese version of Betrayal is directed by Assistant Artistic Director Yau Ting Fai, who handles this story with typical Pinteresque caution, unveiling a Rashomon of a marriage—of bliss and of purgatory—to the audience. (13^th to 28^th March 2027 at Hong Kong Arts Centre Shouson Theatre)
 
 

Black Box Productions

31 Years
Speak about love; perhaps love has already passed. They meet through a dating app, deeply attracted to each other. But 31 years is a huge age gap, it exposes differences in their upbringing, lifestyle and values, as well as the type of future they anticipate. Is a deep love all that’s needed to wipe out age difference, pulling them closer together? 31 Years first came into being thanks to Project Kite. After half a year of revision and refinement, this play will be unveiled on stage. Jason Lam Chak Ming paints a vivid portrait of love that underlines that chasm between reality and different eras. Versatile actor-turned-director Luna Shaw has long been a star to watch, and this Black Box production promises alternative interpretations on love and human bonds. (14^th to 24^th January 2027 at HKREP Black Box)
 
Saint Joan
The Hundred Years’ War was over, Joan of Arc was destined to burn at stake. During that tumultuous century of war and strife, what tugged at the heartstrings was Joan’s innocence and insistence on her faith. How could Irish playwright and Nobel winner George Bernard Shaw simply chronicle history’s web and flow in Saint Joan? This century-old realistic drama has become an ageless classic, showcasing its dramatis personae as courageous and mediocre, wavering yet headstrong. What makes a saint? What do saints do? Cutting-edge director Matthew Chu utilises a contemporary theatrical approach in this thoughtful, new adaptation to highlight Saint Joan’s power of humanity. Questions and answers that arise will certainly shed new light in the Black Box. (15th to 28th March 2027 at HKREP Black Box) 
 
 
2026-27 Season Offering Up to 30% Discount for the Advance Booking
 
Advance Booking tickets will be made available at POPTICKET.HK from 26^th March to 8^th April 2026. Advance booking discounts apply to all Main Stage programmes and Black Box programmes except Text Testing Festival and The Impossible Trial – a musical. 
 
The new season brochure is available on www.hkrep.com/2627 . Subscription programme enquiry: 3103 5900