Hsiung Fo-hsi (1900-26 October 1965), playwright, educator, and critic, was a leading creator of "popular drama," plays written to educate the peasantry.

Fengch'eng, Kiangsi, was the birthplace of Hsiung Fo-hsi. At the time of the 1911 revolution, Hsiung's father took him to Hankow, where he completed his primary and middle school education. He evinced an interest in drama during his student days, directing and acting in school productions as well as writing two plays which were published in 1919. He entered Yenching University at Peking in 1919 and specialized in literature and education. In May 1 92 1 he helped to found the Min-chung hsi-chu she [people's dramatic society], together with Ch'en Ta-pei, Mao Tun (Shen Yen-ping), and Ouyang Yti-ch'ien (qq.v.) . He was graduated from Yenching in 1923.

Hsiung then went to the United States for graduate work. He studied dramatic art at Columbia University in New York from 1923 to 1926 and received an M.A. degree. After returning to China in 1926, he was appointed professor and chairman of the department of dramatic arts in the school of fine arts at Peking University. He also lectured at Yenching and taught in the department of dramatic arts of the Peking Academy of Fine Arts. In 1930 he became chief editor of the periodical Hsi-chü yü wen-i [drama and literature], a bi-monthly magazine which published plays and articles on the new drama.

In 1932 Hsiung became the director of the rural theater of Tinghsien, Hopei, under the auspices of the National Association for the Advancement of Mass Education. The founder of that association and pioneer of the mass education movement in China, James Yen (Yen Yang-ch'u, q.v.), enlisted Hsiung in an attempt to produce popular drama as a means of educating the peasants of north China. To achieve this end, the dramatist went to rural areas and lived among the peasants so that he could create plays they could understand. Hsiung's role in this rural experiment won him renown. He wrote a book about his experiences entitled An Experiment in Popularizing Drama (1937).

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937, Hsiung moved with the National Association for the Advancement of Mass Education to Hankow and then to Changsha. When the association was forced to suspend its activities, he and his troupe, now called the Farmers' Resistance Dramatic Corps, went to Chengtu, Szechwan, where they gave a series of performances to huge audiences. Because of their success, the provincial government established the Szechwan Provincial College of Dramatic Arts in 1942 and made Hsiung Fo-hsi president of the institution. The Chungking authorities named him to head the central youth dramatic club under the auspices of the San Min Chu I Youth Corps. About this time, however, a play that Hsiung wrote about Yuan Shih-k'ai was banned by the government. Increasing censorship distressed Hsiung. He moved to Kweilin, Where he founded two wartime literary magazines, Tang-tai wen-hsueh [contemporary literature] and IVen-hsueh ch' uang-tsao [literary creation], and wrote fiction, short stories, and travel articles. His first novel, T'ieh-miao [iron anchor], was published in 1946. He then wrote a sequel entitled T'ieh-hua [iron flower]. After returning to east China in 1946, Hsiung became president of the Shanghai Experimental School of Dramatic Art.

In the summer of 1949 Hsiung was a delegate to the meeting at Peiping that established the All-China Federation of Literary and Arts Circles. He continued to be prominent in that organization after 1949; he was elected to its national committee in 1953 and again in 1960. He became a member of the standing committee of the All-China Association of Dramatic Workers, the national organization responsible for coordinating work in the theater. He also served on the culture and education committee of the East China regional government apparatus from 1949 until 1954. In June 1955 he was named president of the east China branch at Shanghai of the Central Academy of Dramatic Arts. He also became a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, representing the All- China Federation of Literary and Arts Circles. He died in Shanghai on 26 October 1965. Hsiung Fo-hsi is generally regarded as a leading playwright of the so-called popular drama, as distinguished from the literary drama, of which Hung Shen and T'ien Han (qq.v.) were leading representatives. In his work for the theater Hsiung often experimented with Western methods and emphasized stage effects. He specialized in comedy, often with a satirical twist, and attempted to cater to the tastes of the uneducated Chinese playgoer. Many of Hsiung's plays originally were published in the Ch'en Pao [morning post] literary supplement, the Tungfang tsa-chih [eastern miscellany], and Drama and Literature. They were collected and published by the Commercial Press in four volumes, which appeared from 1930 to 1932. Hsiung also published a volume of essays on the drama, Fo-hsi lun-chü and a book on the principles of play writing, Hsieh-chü yuan-li .

Hsiung Fo-hsi married Yeh Chung-yin (Yehtzu), a graduate of the National Drama School who worked at the Szechwan Provincial College of Dramatic Arts in Chengtu when Hsiung was president of that institution.