ZIJUN (NEIL) WANG is an aspiring director and lighting designer who recently graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre degree from New York University. He was a graduate of Production & Design Studio. Previously, he completed three years of training at Playwrights Horizons Theater School. Both studios are under Tisch Drama at New York University.

He realized that being a director and lighting designer at the same time really grants him the storytelling power to evoke feelings and thoughts in the audience. Lighting can create spectacles that first grab people to walk into the theaters, and throughout the stories, the composition of lights can also create breathtaking images that linger when people walk back into the real world. And as a director, he can create stage pictures and movements that transcend what can happen in reality - showing juxtapositions. Thus, creating different textures, qualities, and rhythms become his main effort both as a lighting designer and a director.​

As a theater-maker of the new generation, he challenges himself to find contemporary ways to tell stories of his people and himself. He tends to evoke feelings and empathies through theatrical elements. His artistic practice is intended to uplift the voice and shared experiences of Chinese and Pan-Asian communities by finding communion and reliability between collaborators. In an institution with many implicit racial biases, he would like to create a safe space for people sharing my identity to use arts as an avenue to fight against systemic oppression.

He sees theater as a way to expose topics and truths that people want to turn away from, so humans can learn more about themselves. He is yearning to utilize the form of theater and its put-on nature to help articulate the content by carefully curating the juxtaposition of content and form, sometimes revisiting the meta-quality of theatrical works.

He loves sunset, sunrise, and everything about the sun. He thinks the sun is the wonderful inspiration for lighting design, but it is, in fact, the only light source that created the amazing shades in this world.