Musicals tap into a surge in demand

At the news conference, Shanghai Culture Square announced that they added 17 more performances.

The upcoming shows mark the play's second tour outside Japan, following a successful London tour last year.

All 42 shows taking place at Shanghai Culture Square from July 14 to Aug 17 "are probably still not enough for Shanghai", Fei says. "This play will be phenomenal. We look forward to receiving audiences from not only China but also nearby countries in the Asia-Pacific region."

This is not the first time Shanghai Culture Square has held dozens of performances for one production. "We presented 64 shows of The Phantom of the Opera, and War Horse, too," he says. The German musical Elisabeth also had 40 shows at the theater in 2014.

Musicals and theater productions from other countries are also making their China debut at the venue this year, such as British production of Wuthering Heights by Wise Children theater company, which was created and led by the multi-award-winning director Emma Rice, and the West End production of Life of Pi directed by Max Webster, which was created in 2019 and is now on its first Asia tour, as well as the German production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Russian author Anton Chekhov's masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, with the internationally renowned French film star Isabelle Huppert, opened last Friday for a three night run.

According to Huppert, Chekhov's masterpiece explores universal human feelings, which transcend time and culture. The play's cherry orchard represents philosophical and metaphoric existence, she says. "It can be real or fictional. That's what makes Chekhov a genius. It could be a person, property or an old place."

Huppert gave her first performance at Shanghai Culture Square doing a reading of Marguerite Duras in 2017. "Shanghai audiences welcomed me passionately. I felt their enthusiasm and am happy to return," says the actress.

Earlier this year, Huppert participated in a Chinese reality TV show as a guest mentor. She said she hopes to have more opportunities working in China with Chinese filmmakers. Huppert has seen many films by Chinese directors and named a few that she particularly liked, such as Jia Zhangke, Bi Gan and Lou Ye.

Shanghai Culture Square was founded 14 years ago as the first theater in the city to be designed to showcase musicals. Since then, Shanghai has gradually become an important center for performing arts in China and for the global live entertainment industry, Fei says. "It is a natural choice for big theater productions from abroad to premiere in Shanghai. The market proves that our audiences have strong consumption power for overseas repertoire, not just French but also German, Italian, Russian and Spanish shows. Our audiences have developed distinctive preferences — some favor French, some German, and some only go for Broadway shows."