'Hamlet' actors stage a triumph

At graduation, Pu got one of his friends to donate luggage to all of the students. "So that they could take a piece of Shanghai with them back to the plateau," he says.

Yang says everybody is happy to help these students. They received down coats for the winter, and those from poverty-stricken areas got financial aid. The students also got special subsidies when they had an opportunity to visit theaters in Europe and the United States.

"I've seen them evolve and develop, and I have evolved and grown alongside with them," Yang says.

Tashi Penba Norbu, 23, plays the title role of the Danish prince in the Mandarin version of Hamlet. The young man from Ngari prefecture says he thought it was just "a school in Shanghai recruiting" when he went to participate in the audition about four years ago.

"I had no ambition of building a career in show business and had no idea about any talent hunt or TV show. Most of my classmates would go to a regular college and come back to our hometown, get a job and start a family," he says.

"Our folks tend to live naturally. But in Shanghai, it is completely different. Everybody seems to have their own target and work hard for it."

Playing a Hamlet character created by a British author 400 years ago, he did not find the story distant or strange. He marveled at how awesome it was and how young people like himself can be depressed and ponder on the question of life and death.

The young man says he still does not have any long-term plans, but he loves the theater for now and enjoys communicating with the audience through his acting.

"It is difficult for me to quit theater performance," he says.