Artistic committee members will include veteran actresses Zhou Xun and Hao Lei, and actors Huang Bo and Hu Ge, as well as contemporary Chinese artist Yue Minjun and Travis Preston, who is the artistic director of the CalArts Center for New Performance and dean of the CalArts School of Theater.

The festival's competition jury will see artists, such as director-playwright Stan Lai, actor-director Huang Lei and theater director Yang Ting.

Launched in 2013, the festival has become an annual celebration of theater by staging plays, dialogues and carnivals at Wuzhen, an ancient town.

The competition for young artists has become a major event of bringing out new theater talents. During the past 10 years, over 8,100 people have applied to participate in the competition and about 600 theater talents staged 143 original works during the festival.