Play with a public appeal

Young Theater was scheduled to celebrate its grand opening in March. By choosing One Fine Day as its opening production, the theater hoped to highlight its involvement in the local life and culture of the city.

Located at No 1155 Kongjiang Road in Yangpu district, the building used to be Yangpu Theater, which went through a makeover in 2018. Relaunched as Young Theater, the space is focused on showcasing dramas.

Young Theater will be managed by Shanghai Grand Theater, the prime performing art center in the city. According to Zhang Xiaoding, general manager of Shanghai Grand Theater, Young Theater will have two performing spaces: the main space with 1,020 seats, and a multifunctional small hall that can hold more than 160 people.

"Yangpu district is home to renowned universities such as Fudan and Tongji and we hope to nurture a healthy ecology of theater art in this area," Zhang tells China Daily. "We want to expand the boundaries of theater, incubate new productions and attract young emerging artists to experiment with their wildest ideas."

Upon its completion next year, the West Bund Grand Theater will join Young Theater and become the third member of the Shanghai Grand Theater family. According to Zhang, the new theater on the West Bund will be focused on musicals.

Although the city already has Culture Square, a theater dedicated to musical performances, it alone is not enough to support the entire musical industry, and this explains the need for another venue, Zhang says. With musicals being the most popular theater form for today's young urban audiences in China, the market needs more quality productions, creative talent and outstanding creative teams, she adds.

Besides being a performing arts center for musicals, the new West Bund theater will also become a creative hub for Chinese musical productions.

"Our management team for the West Bund Theater is already working on the incubation of several original Chinese musical productions, and we will also work on the adaptations of foreign productions into Chinese, such as the South Korean musical The Brothers Karamazov," Zhang says.

On World Book Day, on April 23, the three theaters jointly presented a 12-hour livestream that featured artists, authors, and theater professionals who introduced their favorite productions.

"We introduced Shanghai Grand Theater's online program to stay connected with audiences during the lockdown," Zhang says. "We also took the opportunity to introduce the two new sister theaters and their respective social network identities. We hope each theater can develop its distinctive characteristics and reach its own heights to meet the diverse demands of the people. Together we will be able to develop the market and help the city's live-show industry achieve a healthy growth."