Wu Jingjing, chief reporter of Elephant News Oriental News
The original musical "A Date in This Life", with Lai Shengchuan as the artistic director, playwright Shen Yue's original script, and Huang Shengyi and Xu Hao starring, recently premiered successfully at the Shanghai Theater. It is worth mentioning that this is Huang Shengyi's first challenge to a musical. Previously, Huang Shengyi had acted in the drama "Let Me Hold Your Hand...... directed by Lai Shengchuan, playing the husband and wife "Ou Jia". This time Huang Shengyi also stepped out of his comfort zone again, speaking of singing and dancing in addition to performance, and completing difficult challenges, Huang Shengyi said frankly in an interview with reporters, "Everything is worth it, I like the joy and sense of achievement brought by this kind of struggle and challenge."
The musical "A Date in This Life" mainly tells the story of a group of drama students who disperse like sparks and reunite after 15 years. They are "Haoru" (played by Huang Shengyi) and "Renjie" (played by Xu Hao) who love each other but never come together, "President" and "Zishan" who have been married for many years but have spent their feelings in firewood, rice, oil and salt, and "Ah Hui" and "Miao Miao", who were once fairy couples, and now go their separate ways...... In order to complete the graduation work that was not performed 15 years ago, they sang and danced on the stage to perform classic love stories such as "Jane Eyre", "Secret Love", "Caesar and Cleopella", "Steadfast Tin Soldier", "Phoenix Returns to the Nest", etc., expressing their emotions through "play within a play", regaining courage, don't hesitate, and don't let any regrets in their future lives. "Huang Shengyi's voice is very suitable for acting in musicals, the live performance is stable, and the level is no less than that of professional musical singers", "When I saw the reunion of 'Yun Zhifan' and 'Jiangbin Liu' in the play within the play "Secret Love", I actually cried", "The first time I saw the singing version of "Secret Love", Huang Shengyi not only sang well, but also improved his acting skills a lot"...... After watching the premiere, many audience members also left messages.
Talking about the reason for joining the musical, Huang Shengyi mentioned that when he was rehearsing "Let Me Hold Your Hand......" 2 years ago, there was originally a dance, but it was removed because it didn't feel like it matched the whole. But Lai Shengchuan and Ding Naizhu also discovered Huang Shengyi's dancing talent, "By chance, Sister Ding heard me singing the songs on the album, and encouraged me to develop in the direction of musicals." Later, when the musical "A Date in This Life" was being prepared, the main creator took the initiative to contact Huang Shengyi and felt that she was very suitable for this role. Huang Shengyi, who has always liked challenges, felt that fate had arrived, so he tried it.
Although I have experience in drama, acting in musicals is still different. "In the past, the performance on the drama stage may be more to express a feeling of oneself, and the music follows the rhythm of the actors. But musicals, it requires the actors to fully serve the play, and every node has to step on the beat to perform, and the chain cannot be dropped." Huang Shengyi admitted that it is indeed very challenging to appear in a musical, "because there are many scenes within a play, and the rhythm is fast, which requires me to quickly grab the costume on stage, I have 9 different sets of clothes and shapes in this musical, and sing 18 original songs, on the whole, the performance and singing and dancing intensity is very large."
To this end, Huang Shengyi set aside 2 months of training for vocal music and dance classes. Although it was hard, after the success of the premiere performance, which received a wave of applause and praise from the audience, Huang Shengyi felt that "everything is worth it". From an actor to a singer, to a drama actor and a musical singer, she has completed the business improvement of her acting career again and again, and she enjoys the process, "I like the joy and sense of accomplishment brought by this kind of struggle and challenge." After the premiere, from April 20 to 26, Huang Shengyi will continue to perform the musical at the Shanghai Theater.