The rainy night of 1933 old yard, a little weird. On the second floor of the micro-theater, "Hey, Julie" ushered in the premiere.
Director Xu Jiajia, producer Habe, stage supervisor Li Shiqi, actors Nie Zhengtong and Liu Guangyun are all Fudan graduates, and any screenwriter is still studying at Fudan University. This is the first time that they love drama have stepped out of the ivory tower and presented their works to the audience through commercial performances. From January 15 to 18, there were 5 consecutive performances.
"Hey, Julie" was originally the graduation work of Fudan Drama Company's class of 2019. At that time, everyone was discussing how to adapt "Miss Julie" by Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The original story is about the noble lady Julie falling in love with a black male servant. Some people have a big brain and suggest that it can be changed to a bit of science fiction and futurism. Director Xu Jiajia thought of artificial intelligence, because the maid Christine in the play is "a bit of ai".
Xu Jiajia gave the script to the students of Fudan Drama Club for any adaptation. Anyone who has ever read "Father" and "Miss Julie" and feels that Strindberg's characters are bitter and bitter, especially women, which is really not very cute. But re-reading the script, she began to feel sad for Julie, especially when she repeatedly asked for orders from others. She thought, if Miss Julie lived today, she would be eager to become an AI, right? "To do AI, you only need to obey the 'command', and you don't have to question the meaning behind the command." As a result, the story of "Miss Julie" has a new context.
After graduating from Fudan with a bachelor's degree, Xu Jiajia was admitted to the Directing Department of shanghai theater academy for graduate school. She has been exposed to drama since she was a child, and when she was a child, she studied acting in the small screen star and participated in the drama club in middle school. In fudan drama club, she began to work as an actress, and when she reached her senior year, she finally directed her first campus drama work "Soft".
"Being a director is harder than you think, and it's more interesting than you think." Xu Jiajia said, "You can never pass on your ideas to the audience 100 percent. Drama is a comprehensive art that requires the efforts of many people. Everyone has different ideas, how to reach a consensus? In the process of transmitting their own ideas, there will be a loss of information, there will also be a superposition of information, and there will be surprises that they did not expect. ”
"Hey, Julie" was well received when it was staged on Fudan. At that time, Xu Jiajia had just graduated from acting for a year and wanted to try to do something on her own, so she and her partners in Fudan Drama Club, Habei and Li Shiqi, wanted to make this play go from campus to the market.
She said: "I used to do plays in schools, the audience was all college students, they were very tolerant. I don't know what the audience outside looks like, what they like and what they don't like. ”
Habe is the producer of "Hey, Julie", and when he first had the idea of doing commercial performances, countless people around him came to "persuade him to quit". The reason is that the industry is difficult, especially for resource-poor newcomers. Moreover, whether a play can succeed or not, there are many uncertainties and great risks.
But Habe felt, "Since you think of it, do it." Even if you try to climb and roll, even if you fail, it doesn't matter, it should be 'paying tuition'. ”
Habe's first conundrum is: Where does the money come from?
Renting a rehearsal hall requires money and finding acquaintances to fund it. It takes money to make prop costumes, and you can raise a sum of money from other friends.
In order to save money, everyone racked their brains to use all the available resources around them: stage beauty, costumes, it was the stage supervisor Li Shiqi who helped the students who played. The music arrangement was on Habey himself. The production of promotional videos also relies on the support of friends.
The production cost of such a play is about 200,000 yuan, and they only spent 60,000 or 70,000 yuan in the end.
One month before the performance, the performance venue that was originally talked about the same suddenly stopped performing, and could only temporarily find a new place. Finally, it was changed to the 1933 micro-theater, re-scheduled, and readjusted the plan.
As for the professional and amateur actor team, they also encountered the situation of "not in one channel" in rehearsals. Nie Zhengtong and Liu Guangyun are partners of Fudan Drama Club, and Lu Yuanting, who plays Miss Julie, has been playing Huangmei opera since elementary school and is now broadening the path of drama, seeking breakthroughs and transformations. Their understanding of the performance, the handling of the details of the performance, has been various differences.
Until the premiere began, Xu Jiajia still had no bottom in her heart. "I was on the console when I was performing, and I was actually very nervous, and I was watching the audience's reaction. Miss Julie's long monologue passages are afraid of the audience's distraction. Fortunately, everyone took it very seriously. A few laughs, everyone laughed, and the stone in their hearts fell. ”
Xu Jiajia, who has just walked out of the campus and has a dream of drama, has anxiety and expectations. She wants to have her own work "seen," but she also understands that the road is not so easy. "In the future, I hope to have more contact with different crews, whether it is an actor or an assistant director, and accumulate more experience." At the same time, maintain a state of creation, one play after another. ”
"Hey, Julie" has been performed for five performances, and the box office has passed the halfway mark, which has made Habe feel satisfied. Because of "Hey, Julie", they walked out of the ivory tower, raised funds, made, submitted for approval, publicized, sold tickets... Figured out every aspect of the commercial performance. For Habe, these experiences are the most precious things.
At the end of the night of the premiere, Habe took the stage, took a picture of a piece of paper in his hand, and read a long list of thanks. It seems that without the help of any of them, this night would not have materialized.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Li Junna Text Editor: Zhang Yi Photo Editor: Su Wei