Description
Modern Chinese spoken drama is an art form that originally transferred from the West in the early twentieth century. The translated plays continue to account for the preponderance of performances on the stages of China. In the last decade, so-called ‘little theatres’ sprouted in Beijing and Shanghai. While state-owned, mainstream theatres present classics by Shakespeare, Molière, and Ibsen, privately owned little theatres seek to produce experimental plays for Chinese audiences. One of the key elements of productions in little theatres is the staging of contemporary foreign plays. Since these plays unmask issues such as unsatisfactory social conditions, as well as revealing some of the negative characteristics of human nature, initially they were not widely well received by Chinese audiences.As a result of support from social media, including the WeChat app and its official account and websites such as Douban, some of the translated plays staged in little theatres have earned a good reputation which has served to attract increasing numbers of theatregoers to attend the performances.
In light of the development of contemporary Chinese little theatres, this paper will focus on the Drum Tower West Theatre, which is one of the most successful little theatres existences in China today. This analysis will reveal how the theatre’s brand image was established by way of support from its official WeChat official account. Furthermore, it will explore the response to its self-produced plays through criticism on the internet platform Douban. This article will examine in a general way, and the influence of new media on the progression of little theatres in China.
| Period | 8 Sept 2022 |
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| Held at | LA SCRIPT ACADEMY, France |
| Degree of Recognition | International |