20/31: Doing theatre in China
Theatre in English in Shanghai is becoming more and more popular. As an actor one of the things I wanted to do in China was to be part of a production, amateur or professional I didn’t care, just be in front of a public in this country.
A quick Google search was enough to find about East West Theatre, an English speaking theatre group in Shanghai that was created in 2006. The site didn’t seem to have any update in a long time but I sent my acting resume just in case.
After one month I received a casting call, they were going to present A Prelude To A Kiss by Craig Lucas and they were looking for actors. I went to the audition and nailed one of the roles. I was going to be Tyler, the best friend of Peter, the main character, who’s just trying to make fun of his best friend in his wedding.
I was excited, this wasn’t just my first play in Shanghai, it was my first play in English as well.
We started with the rehearsals three months before the premiere. With two weeks of holiday for Christmas and another two weeks off for Chinese New Year, so we only had two months to prepare the play.
The premiere was February 24 in the called Top O’The Market, a small space where theatre and music presentations take place in a considerable constant rate.
The show was going to be presented once the first day, two functions the second day and just one the last day. The last two dates were completely sold out.
The response from the public was good. Most of them were foreigners but still we had a good attendance from local people. The show was completely in English and no Chinese version was presented of it.
Theatre in English in China isn’t easy. The language is the main barrier that this kind of theatre finds. Plays in Chinese are quite popular though, but most of them require fluent speakers and Asian look like actors, unless the character explicitly asks for a foreigner. That’s why it’s hard to make a living from theatre in Shanghai as a foreigner, but still some people can do it. In my case I found a good niche were to put myself, surrounded by people who live from other acting related activities, like Theatre teachers, movies or series actors, models; and that like to do plays in their spare time.
I was lucky to find a good company in my first four months in Shanghai, and I was luckier that this company was East West Theatre. My experience with the company was great. It’s a really professional group that disguises itself as an amateur one. They really know how to do things, their experience is visible just by watching how they move inside the production circles, and a long list of experienced producers, actors and directors gives the company all the tools it needs in order to create high quality plays.
There are other companies and groups that care about giving theatre in English a space in Shanghai. As I talked before Tianzifang is a popular place where plays are performed in English almost every weekend by One World Theatre, usually presented just one day this short stories give a small opportunity to actor to not stop doing what they like.
This was my first encounter with theatre in English, and with theatre in China, but you can be sure it would not be the last one.
This story is part of my 31/31 challenge. Following a friend’s idea I will publish at least one story every day for the next month.
If you see any error please let me know, the idea is to stop over-reviewing my stories before publishing them.
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