After the Cultural Revolution, stage productions of Bertolt Brecht's plays in China reflected the government's policy of “reform and opening-up.” The Brecht experts who were instrumental in disseminating his works and producing his plays for Chinese audiences during that period include Li Jianming, Zhang Li, and Ding Yangzhong. Li Jianming has been a key contributor to the Brecht reception in Chinese theater since 1979, particularly through her translations of Brecht's works. After the Cultural Revolution, Li helped the directors Huang Zuolin and Chen Yong with their stage productions of Brecht's plays. She worked as a dramaturg with nationally renowned director Lin Zhaohua before she became a playwright. In her unpublished manuscript Brecht and I Li discusses the difficulty of appropriately describing Brecht's relationship to China:

I interviewed Li in Beijing in April 2016, but we continued our conversation afterwards via phone and email. What follows is an edited version of our exchanges about Brecht in China.

ZHANG: How did you first discover Brecht?

LI: I first discovered Brecht in the 1970s through the German-language teacher Wolfram Schlenker, who was then working at the Beijing Second Foreign Language Institute. Although I had read many novels by East German writers, I had not been interested in drama. Through this teacher I began to sample Brecht's works and theoretical essays, including his thoughts on how to stage his plays, and I also read his poetry. One could say that I began to develop a strong interest in Chinese theater through Brecht's work.