繁體中文
吳祖光（1917年4月21日—2003年4月9日），又名吳召石、吳韶，祖籍江蘇武進（今常州），喺北京一個書香家庭出世，爸爸吳瀛曾參與故宮博物院初創事務，能詩擅畫。佢細個讀孔德學校，後來入中法大學文學系，讀咗一年就受聘任南京國立戲劇專科學校校長室秘書。1934年佢發表短篇小說《宮娥怨》，係處女作，少年時已有「神童」之譽。1937年抗日戰爭爆發，佢以東北義勇軍英雄苗可秀為題材寫成第一個劇本《鳳凰城》，呢齣戲喺抗戰期間哄動全國。1937年至1948年間，佢做過南京國立戲劇專科學校講師、重慶中央青年劇社同中華劇藝社嘅編導、《新民晚報》副刊編輯、《清明》雜誌主編，仲做過香港大中華影片公司編導同香港永華影業公司導演；抗戰期間他隨劇校遷往湖南、四川，一面講授語文與中國戲劇史，一面寫作劇本。之後佢寫成《正氣歌》、《林衝夜奔》、《牛郎織女》、《少年遊》、《闖江湖》同1942年嘅《風雪夜歸人》，其中《風雪夜歸人》一般公認係佢嘅代表作。佢一生創作超過三十部劇作，詩、文、書、畫亦都有名。1947年，因為其中一齣戲被禁，佢避走香港。1951年經老舍介紹，佢同評劇演員新鳳霞結婚，由老舍做證婚人，並為新鳳霞改編評劇《花為媒》，該劇1963年拍成電影，成為傳統戲翻新的典範。1955年佢執導戲曲電影《梅蘭芳的舞台藝術》，由北京電影製片廠攝製；他亦為中國戲曲學校實驗京劇團、北京京劇院創作《武則天》、《三打陶三春》等劇目。1957年佢被劃為右派，作品同發表被禁近二十年，文化大革命之後到1980年才獲得政治平反。佢嘅京劇《三打陶三春》1985年曾經喺倫敦國際戲劇節上演。2003年4月9日，吳祖光喺北京逝世。
English
Wu Zuguang (21 April 1917 – 9 April 2003), also known as Wu Zhaoshi and Wu Shao, was born in Beijing to a family from Wujin, Jiangsu, and became one of modern China's leading playwrights as well as a film director and social critic. His father, Wu Ying, had taken part in the founding of the Palace Museum and was known for poetry and painting. He attended the Kongde School and then the literature department of Zhongfa University, leaving after a year to serve as secretary to the head of the National Drama School in Nanjing. In 1934 he published his first short story, Gong E Yuan, and in youth he was known as a 'child prodigy'. His first play, City of Phoenix (1937), dramatised the anti-Japanese guerrilla hero Miao Kexiu and became one of the most influential patriotic plays of the war years. Between 1937 and 1948 he lectured at the National Drama School, worked as a director for the Central Youth Drama Troupe and the China Drama Arts Society in Chongqing, edited the literary supplement of Xinmin Evening News and the magazine Qingming, and served as a director for Hong Kong's Great China Film Company and Yung Hwa Motion Picture; as his drama school moved to Hunan and Sichuan during the war he taught language and Chinese drama history while writing plays. He went on to write more than thirty plays, including The Song of Integrity, Lin Chong's Night Flight, The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Jianghu and the 1942 Returning Home on a Snowy Night, widely regarded as his masterpiece; he was also known for poetry, prose, calligraphy and painting. In 1947 a banned play forced him to flee to Hong Kong. In 1951, introduced by Lao She, he married the Pingju performer Xin Fengxia, who starred in his adaptation Hua Wei Mei, filmed in 1963 as a model of modernised traditional theatre; Lao She acted as witness at the wedding. In 1955 he directed the opera film Mei Lanfang's Stage Art for Beijing Film Studio, and he also wrote Peking operas such as Wu Zetian and The Three Beatings of Tao San Chun for the Peking opera companies of Beijing. Branded a rightist in 1957, he was barred from publishing for nearly two decades and was only politically rehabilitated around 1980. His Peking opera The Three Beatings of Tao San Chun was staged at the London International Festival of Theatre in 1985. He died in Beijing in April 2003.
