The 4th Jiangnan Youth Drama Festival: Finding the Future Power of Drama

The play "Vines" was staged. Courtesy of Zhao Yangyang

Suzhou, October 30 (Zhou Jianlin) On the evening of the 29th, the Starry Drama Village "I Am Yu Huanshui" came to Suzhou Culture and Arts Center to perform. It has exhausted the heartache and pain of middle-aged people, and also given the audience a surprise to the reverse life; it has exposed the helpless reality of society, family, family affection, and friendship, and also given the audience a happy ending.

At this point, the performance of the 4th Jiangnan Youth Drama Festival has come to an end, but the story about Suzhou drama continues. "One Man's Shakespeare", "Looking for Family", "Two Dogs' Life Opinions", "I Am Yu Huanshui" and other wonderful dramas continue to be presented.

As an important part of the 3rd Suzhou Jiangnan Culture, Art and International Tourism Festival, the 4th Jiangnan Youth Theater Festival consists of four major sections: fine drama performances, local drama competitions, youth drama workshops, and youth drama incubation programs.

With the goal of prospering Suzhou drama industry, taking the cultivation of local young theater talents as its own responsibility, helping the development of Suzhou small theater drama, and promoting the cultivation and development of local youth theater teams, Jiangnan Youth Drama Festival has ushered in the fourth session this year.

On the big stage of this year's Youth Theater Festival, the Suzhou Local Drama Society presented a number of plays to the audience. "Vines" is a work brought by director Zhao Yangyang. Although the comments on Douban were mixed, the young Zhao Yangyang gave his work a high score of "99".

"I give 99 points to every stage, stage creation is a comprehensive art, a collection of multiple types of artistic creation, all people together to create dreams. So behind the stage, everyone deserves full recognition. The deduction of 1 point is to hope that this work does not stop there. Drama works have only begun their own growth journey from the moment of birth, and we have taken root from the first stage, growing and precipitating in the years. Zhao Yangyang said.

In Zhao Yangyang's view, the Jiangnan Youth Drama Festival not only strives to invite high-quality plays to be staged in Suzhou, but also provides the best quality support for local young theater artists, so that every fresh work can be staged to meet the audience. The stage of the drama festival is a window for local theater people to show themselves to the Suzhou audience, and it is also a platform for Suzhou theater to beckon to the world.

On October 11, 2021, during the 2021 Suzhou Cyber Security Publicity Week, "Doll's Log" was staged at the Comedy Theater on Suzhou Culture and Arts Center Avenue, which made the audience think more about network security by interpreting the story of network security.

Liu Xiao, the screenwriter of the play, said: "The Jiangnan Youth Drama Festival allows the local drama community to increase their sense of identification with this land and the sense of identity with Jiangnan culture, we want to tell our own stories, the stories that happened here, we look back and find that these stories are 'wet', which may be the infiltration of Jiangnan culture." ”

Young people are to drama as seeds are to the field, their sincere, persistent, pure dreams are continued on the stage of theater, and everyone also sees the hope and light of the future of theater from their vibrant creativity.

The short drama competition unit of the 4th Jiangnan Youth Drama Festival was also wonderful. The expert judges of this competition included Pu Yuzhu, a national first-class actor, and Wang Qian, a doctor of the Directing Department of the Central Academy of Drama. The actors on the stage performed vividly, and the audience frequently burst into warm applause.

In this year's Drama Festival, the script collection activity of the Youth Theater Incubation Program is also worthy of attention, which lasted more than a month and received a total of 212 valid application scripts. According to statistics, a total of more than 190 screenwriters participated in the script collection. Among them, 83% of young screenwriters aged 18-40 are as high as 83%.

As a regional script collection, this event has had a certain impact nationwide, spanning 25 provinces, 57 cities, and spreading throughout the motherland. Through comparison, it was found that there were far more screenwriters from the south than screenwriters from the north. It can be seen that the theater incubation activities aimed at the brand building of "Jiangnan Culture" have produced a certain appeal in the minds of southern screenwriters.

How can Suzhou show its unique charm in the field of drama and become more "dramatic"? At present, Suzhou is re-examining and empowering Jiangnan culture. Issued the "Support Policy on the Implementation of the Cultural Industry Multiplication Plan", aiming at the new space of the digital economy innovation domain, attracting a large number of domestic cultural industry pioneer entities to seize the beach suzhou to carry out the layout. (End)

Source: China News Network