"During the pandemic, I was confused, depressed, and thought about it, but I never thought of giving up. Because no matter what the situation, the dramatist is to prove his value and dignity by making plays and doing good plays. These days, Wang Keran, the artistic director and chief producer of Yanghua Theater, who is busy cooperating with French directors in the Beijing premiere of "Thunderstorm" and "After Thunderstorm" and the whole live broadcast, as a member of the drama industry that has been severely damaged and tested this year, looks back on the extraordinary year of 2020, the tone is full of infinite emotion, but the expression is also particularly firm.
Theaters close The performance industry has been hit hard by the pandemic
At the end of last year, Yanghua Theatre held a vigorous four-day "World Good Drama Chinese Audience" Discourse Week, releasing a series of "International Performance Season" plays and newly created plays that will be launched in 2020; it also plans to be invited to participate in the French "Spring of Actors" festival for the first time in 2020 to perform "New Wilderness", and cooperate with the famous French director Jean Bellolini to tour the new drama "In a Moment" in Europe. These will promote the development of Yanghua theater to a new level of major plans, so that Wang Keran is full of ambition, full of confidence to lead the entire team to actively participate in various preparatory work. But unexpectedly, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic has put everything into a state of stagnation and unknown.
Many performing arts institutions have suffered similar situations to Yanghua Drama, and all performance plans have been cancelled and postponed due to the epidemic. The National Centre for the Performing Arts is the theater with the most performances during the Spring Festival, and many wonderful plays at home and abroad are staged at the same time. Among them, the entire troupe of the Irish tap dance drama "Dance of the King", which was imported by jiuwei culture, has arrived in China, but it has to be forced to cancel the performance, arrange for the troupe to return to China, and refund the tickets to the audience. At that time, more than 30 staff members of the Customer Service Center of the National Centre for the Performing Arts were all on duty, receiving thousands of calls from the audience every day, and completing the refund technology processing and refund schedule of 3459 online orders for 23 performances during the Spring Festival.
In addition to "Dance of the King", jiuwei culture originally wanted to introduce the tour of "The Dance of the River", "Notre Dame de Paris", "Rock Mozart" and other popular projects were all in vain, and the company was saddled with millions of yuan in debt.
In the face of difficulties, we still actively contribute to society
But in this most difficult period, the dramatists not only do not complain or be pessimistic, but also contribute to the "fight against the epidemic" with a positive attitude and strong execution. In mid-March, Wang Keran and actor Liu Kaiwei jointly donated 180,000 specially customized masks to the epidemic area in Hubei province to the homes for the elderly, welfare homes, aid stations and homes of widows, widows, orphans and left-behind children in the epidemic area, as well as the message written by Yanghua Drama: "Know the wind and rain ahead, fearless and fearless to protect; when it is in full bloom, Chunhui spring buds are bathed in spring breeze." Jiuwei Culture funded and invited 40 well-known singers of French-language musicals to jointly record the anti-epidemic song "Together with You" in solidarity with China.
Yanghua Drama and Jiuwei Culture have also provided their own copyrighted excellent commercial performance resources to the "Cloud Theater" launched by Poly Theater during the epidemic free of charge, so that people staying at home can also watch high-quality performances "online". Wang Keran and Zhang Ligang, chairman of Jiuwei Culture, both said: "In this special period, we hope to make some contributions to society, which is also the glory of drama! ”
During the epidemic period, various "online" performing arts such as "cloud theater", "cloud performance", "cloud art" and "cloud classroom" have become the response of many cultural units, and institutions such as the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Beijing Renyi, Poly Theater, and Beijing Performing Arts have put various excellent performances on the Internet for free; the "new scene", which is known for introducing a large number of wonderful foreign drama high-definition screenings, is even more so that everyone can still enjoy world-class drama performances through the Internet on the days when they cannot watch foreign performances on the spot.
Some dramatists also try to create "online dramas", striving to explore new models and new ways out of drama. On April 5th and 6th, the first online drama "Waiting for Godot", jointly created by director Wang Chong and Wuhan actors and others, was premiered online, attracting attention. On June 12, Beijing Renyi also broadcast the 68th anniversary celebration party of the hospital for the first time through the "online" form.
In the case of the entire performing arts industry turning on the online mode, Wang Keran soberly and calmly said: "To insist on making plays for the theater, this is the value and existence of theater people. Therefore, since April, Yanghua Drama has actively carried out the creation and rehearsal of many original innovative dramas such as "Twelve Laughing Adventures", "Wandering Song" and "Loser's Diary" in the rehearsal hall. As soon as the theater first opened for business, it immediately began a nationwide tour of these repertoire, bringing spiritual comfort and enjoyment to audiences across the country who were eager to return to the theater to enjoy the theater. Many performing arts units and artists have also actively created works during the epidemic, such as Beijing Renyi's "Community Neighborhood Committee", The National Drama Theatre's "People First", Wuhan Renyi's "Retrograde" and other works, and also take "anti-epidemic" as the theme to praise heroes, boost morale, and transmit positive energy.
Attach importance to the scene and explore new means of communication for performances
Wang Keran, who attaches importance to and emphasizes "drama scene", will never avoid or ignore the new means of transmission due to the epidemic. On July 31st, when the theater had just opened its doors and could only receive 30% of the audience, Yanghua Theater held a launching ceremony of the "Series of Activities to Commemorate the 110th Anniversary of Cao Yu's Birth" held at poly theater, inviting the audience to enjoy a wonderful performance including six drama fragments in the long-lost theater, which sounded a loud "rallying call" for the resumption of work and production of the Beijing theater industry. Wang Keran personally served as the general director of the live broadcast operation; the details of lighting, clothing, multimedia images, music and other aspects were taken into account both live and online; the traffic of various media platforms reached 24.72 million. On September 20, Yanghua Drama held a live broadcast of the "Thunderstorm" and "Thunderstorm " press conferences at poly theater, and 34 media simultaneously broadcast live, with a traffic of 10 million.
Nowadays, under the circumstance that all major literary and artistic units have fully resumed their work and various theaters have continued to perform, Wang Keran still decided to broadcast the annual new works "Thunderstorm" and "After Thunderstorm" for 390 minutes before and behind the stage, showing the charm of drama for the audience through online, offline, online and on-site diversified forms, and also actively exploring new models of drama performance and dissemination in the "post-epidemic era".
"We want to tell all the audiences in various forms that we theater people have always been there. We did not cry and complain because of the heavy blows, nor did we stop creating because of the harsh environment, but we would think more, and we would be more aware and convinced of what we should do as theater people. Wang Keran smiled: "I am now thinking about it every day, how to give everyone a year-end bonus." Although there are great financial losses this year, everyone in the whole team is very desperate, so no matter how difficult the situation is, let everyone have a good year! ”
【Memorabilia】
In January, major performance venues in Beijing cancelled or postponed their performance plans.
In February, theaters across the country closed their doors, and performing arts institutions actively explored "online" forms.
On March 27, the world celebrated an unprecedented "World Theatre Day" in which theaters closed and there were no performances.
On April 17, Gulou West Theater launched the "Theater Selling Cherry Self-Help Action".
On June 1, China Children's Arts held the "June 1st" online carnival for the first time.
On June 12, Beijing Renyi online live broadcast the 68th anniversary celebration party of the hospital.
In August, the Beijing Theater fully resumed work, with a limit of 30% of the audience.
On August 13, the theater attendance limit was raised from 30% to 50%.
On September 1, Yingda returned to Beijing Renyi to direct the premiere of his mother's translated play "Raisins in the Sun".
On September 27, the theater attendance limit was raised from 50% to 75%.
On October 9, Tan Yuanshou, the fifth generation of The Gate of Peking Opera, died at the age of 92.
From October 15 to October 26, the 93-year-old Lan Tianye performed 11 consecutive performances of "Home" with the fourth generation of Beijing Renyi actors.
On October 23, Director Lai Shengchuan's "Book of Water" premiered as the first high-definition drama live work in China.
On December 8, Tian Qinxin and Feng Li were appointed as the presidents of the National Drama Theatre of China and the directors of the China Children's Art Theatre respectively.