Theater to put the drama in shopping
Print Edition
A NEW theater owned by Taiwan playwright and director Stan Lai, and located at the top of a shopping mall in Xujiahui will open to the public this weekend.
The first production at the aptly named Theatre Above will be the comedy “Sand on a Distant Star,” which was written by Lai and features Hong Kong actress Pei-pei Cheng in the lead role of Nightingale, a stargazing peddler with a rebellious daughter.
Lai and his wife, producer/actress Ding Nai-chu, who co-owns, said earlier that the location of the venue — on the fifth floor of the Metro City shopping center — was chosen as the couple wanted to make drama more accessible to the public.
Jin Yili, the theater’s supervisor of programming and marketing said: “We want to promote the idea that drama can be a part of our daily lives, just like dining and shopping.”
“We want to cultivate the habit of people going to theater regularly,” he told Shanghai Daily.
To help achieve that goal, the people who designed the 699-seat auditorium were keen to make it an attractive place to spend an evening.
“We made sure that the seats are really comfy and that there’s lots of leg room,” Jin said.
As well as regular productions — mostly of works by Lai, but also by other playwrights — the theater will host regular lectures and workshops on a wide range of subjects.
Tickets for Saturday’s opening night’s production — a repeat performance will be held on Sunday — cost from 80 yuan (US$12.50), according to the theater’s own website.
Jin said tickets had been selling well for the opening nights.
“We wanted to make sure that going to the theater was affordable to as many people as possible,” he said.
“We’re cheaper than many venues,” he said.
Shanghai has about 130 theatres, though many are in need of modernization. Thirty are slated to undergo major renovations in the next two years.
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