Theater festival helps support new work

The 2024 Peiyuan Art Festival, gathering theater lovers, was held in Beijing from Sept 20 to 22.

Since 2019, Peiyuan has been focused on supporting market-oriented productions with the help of veteran theater experts, producers, directors, and playwrights.

So far, 147 have been conceived and 64 of those works have been staged in theaters in the country.

During the festival, a Chinese play, Fan Shan Hai, or Alley-Oop, by scriptwriter and director Zhu Hongxuan, was staged as the opening production. It tells the story of a female basketball team set against the historical backdrop of the Minguo period (1912-49).

By working with the Beijing Quju Opera Troupe, the platform also produced a Quju opera work, The Life of Mine, based on renowned Chinese writer Lao She's novel of the same name, telling the sad story of a lowly ranked policeman in Beijing during the early 20th century. In 1952, Lao She wrote a play, The Willow Well, in an art form that he invented, based on Beijing's Quyi art, and named it Quju Opera.

The festival saw 20 new theatrical works being premiered , some still being worked on, that covered a wide range of art forms, including musical, Yueju Opera and dance.