Veteran theater artist and educator Fredric Mao Chun-fai has launched a new charitable foundation aimed at preserving Hong Kong’s theater heritage, nurturing emerging talent and encouraging new forms of artistic collaboration.
The Mao Chun-fai Performing Arts Charity Foundation held its official launch ceremony on Thursday after more than a year of preparation.
Built on Mao’s more than five decades of experience in theater creation, education and arts administration, the foundation will focus on four main areas: preserving Hong Kong theater culture, supporting talent development, encouraging artistic innovation and strengthening cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and mainland China.
The foundation adopts the vision “Boundless Theatre, Legacy Without Limits,” with plans to develop research, creative projects and training programs designed to support the next generation of theater practitioners.
Mao has played a significant role in the development of Hong Kong performing arts over the past half-century.
He was among the founding members of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, served as the first artistic director of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre following its incorporation, and was the founding dean of the Academy’s School of Chinese Opera.
His career has spanned theater production, education and cultural exchange, with much of his work exploring ways to bring together Chinese and Western theatrical traditions while developing contemporary approaches to established art forms.
At the launch ceremony, Mao said the encouragement he had received from fellow practitioners and members of the public helped inspire the establishment of the foundation.
The organization plans to introduce a Talent Incubation Programme alongside research and production initiatives, with the aim of cultivating young theater practitioners and creating stage works rooted in Hong Kong culture while maintaining an international outlook.
Its artistic development model will include two streams.
The first, Open Theatre, will support experienced practitioners in further developing their careers and exploring new creative directions.
The second, People Theatre, will take a community-oriented approach, using professional theater practice to broaden participation in the arts and nurture new talent.
The foundation also plans to work with organizations and practitioners in mainland China and overseas to explore new theatrical techniques, production models and opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration.
“This Foundation does not belong to Fredric Mao Chun-fai alone; it belongs to us all,” Mao said.
He called on different sectors of the community to support Hong Kong theater through donations or volunteer participation, with the longer-term goal of preserving local cultural traditions and passing theatrical knowledge to future generations.
For Mao, the new organization represents an effort to turn a lifetime of theater experience into a more structured platform for future development — one that connects heritage with experimentation, established practitioners with younger artists, and Hong Kong with wider cultural networks.
