Theatre in China

[Not Nicky]

Hi all, 

I live in Guangzhou and am planning on checking out some theatre in the coming months. 

In the immediate future there's a series called "非职业戏剧演出季“ （广州十三号剧院主办）: https://search.damai.cn/search.html?keyword=十三号剧院非职业喜剧

It goes for a few weekends with a different play each day, two performances each day. 

 

For others, in Beijing (starting early March), Shenzhen (March-April) and Guangzhou (April) there's the “城市戏剧节” http://zhuanti.juooo.com/zhuanti/2017/xjj/ 

There's a bunch of different genres, stuff in Chinese, English, French, etc. 

 

Personally I'm interested in theatre in general but am of course also looking forward to testing my Chinese listening and following the story! 

Hope to hear reviews or reflections from anyone checking out theatre in China and/or in Chinese!

[xuexiansheng]

Those theater festivals look great. I'm jealous, whenever I'm travelling around China I found it was very hit-or-miss finding theater productions.

 

The best luck I've had was in Guangzhou about 12 years ago, when we asked a taxi driver if he knew any shows in town and he took us out to suburbs. He showed us a theater and by sheer luck we happened to snag some of the last two seats for the last night of a performance run. My friend and my Chinese skills were pretty bad at the time, so we didn't know what were were buying. It turned out to be the season finale of a local 粤剧团. The place was packed with grannies and old men who still support the traditional theater and we had snagged the last two seats because they were in the VIP area, best seats in the house! The show was a classic comedy of errors situation and was easy enough to follow, the lead actor I still remember to this day as giving an insane performance. The role called for operatic arias, lightening-fast comedic dialogue and a good deal of dancing/acrobatics/prat-falls. If anyone deserved a standing ovation, it was that guy! Since it was the last night and we were in the VIP section, my friend and I hung around and were invited up on stage and got our picture taken with the lead actor after someone shoved some flowers into our hands to give to him. I like to think there is a publicity pic somewhere in a media vault in Southern China with two mysterious foreign VIP's and the lead actor's final performance of the season, all smiling our asses off!

 

I've never been able to figure out when the official Theater Season is in China. It seems like I've been there most every time of the year and things are always just about to open or have just closed. I wish you better luck and enjoy!