The sun goes down and the show begins. At night in Shanghai, there are the best theaters in the country, the best creators, and the best audiences (perhaps none of them). And this time we solemnly introduce what is said to be the recognized big three of Shanghai’s “box office”-the venue is full, and a ticket is hard to find. Look and cherish it!
If you are in Shanghai recently and want to relax in the stands and have fun at night, the most knowledgeable theater lovers will often point you to the “bistro” on the edge of People’s Square.
This is not a real tavern, but a small space hidden in a building that looks nothing special at first glance, where the environmental musical “Apolonia” resides.
This is also a real “pub”. The seats are named bar, deck and wine box. During the performance, the audience can even place an order for a glass of customized drinks related to the character.
Producer and actor of “The Tavern” When the story began, it immediately transformed into a small bar called “Apolonia” in New York in the 1930s. The singer and dancer Richard and Oscar in the bar were preparing for the final farewell performance, but Mafia member Steve suddenly broke in and forced the two to immediately perform the autobiographical repertoire of the Mafia godfather… However, if you want to buy a ticket, you still need some luck. This is currently the hottest resident musical performance in Shanghai. Since its opening in the second half of 2020, almost all the venues are full. Tickets for the next month’s performance will be “second empty” when released at the end of each month. Actor Li Qiumeng “Apolonia” was originally a small theater musical born in Daehangno, Seoul, South Korea. Unlike the environmental “bistro” in Shanghai, it was first performed on a traditional framed stage. Producer Han Kun chose to introduce this work. In addition to being moved by the script and music, he also saw its appeal to the audience at a glance: “I have never seen a play that can make the audience so happy and so engaged; In 15 minutes, all the audience will stand up and sing every song with the actors!” After finding a location for the Chinese version of “Apolonia” in Shanghai, the production team encountered a small problem: the performance space is extremely narrow and long. If the traditional stage and auditorium design is used, the audience in the back cannot be guaranteed. Experience. As a result, the creators came up with a rather bold idea-to turn the entire performance space into a stage, so that the story in the play can happen close to the audience, and the actors can walk around the aisle beside the audience, or hide in The corners are dressed behind the curtains, and when the performance reaches the stage, they will jump on the wine table where the audience sits for a tap dance… Between the front and the back, between the real and the illusion, the “bistro” is more like a small world that exists in reality and drama at the same time than a stage, allowing people to linger in it, as if sinking into a magical dream. Producer Han Kun There is a line in “Apolonia” called “I don’t get tired of watching it a hundred times”, and this is also true: “The Tavern” has a very high rate of audience repurchase, and it was already in the 100th performance. The audience watched more than 50 performances—even more than the number of performances performed by some actors. 3 characters, 12 actors, bring the permutation and combination of different casts; coupled with the unpredictable degree of freedom on the scene, the relaxed and intimate atmosphere on and off the stage, as well as the different planning of festival sessions and special sessions, make the “bistro “It has become a treasure place that will always have surprises and Easter eggs waiting to be discovered, attracting many viewers to come back here again and again. Actor Cao Muzhi Han Kun and his production company “A Good Show” are still making more attempts. In May of this year, the prequel “Santa Lucia” of “Apolonia” and the Live Show “Star of the Universe”, which took place in a bar environment and combined a talk show and music performance, started one after another, in the same building, creating With all kinds of dreams. They also plan to radiate the mode of resident musicals in small theaters to more cities. At the end of this year, the “Tavern” will open “branch pavilions” in Changsha and Chengdu, and perform in multiple locations. “Apolonia” may touch everyone in different places. But the producer Han Kun and the actor Cao Muzhi unanimously chose Steve’s line at the end of the story-“We still have Apollonia, and we still have acting.” Actor Li Lei In September 2020, when the show premiered, the performing arts industry was still severely affected by the epidemic. Cao Muzhi said that when he said this line, the audience in the audience was laughing, but he wanted to cry. Only people in this industry know how difficult it was to be able to perform on stage at that time, it was almost a miracle. On March 18 this year, Shanghai became the first city in the country to cancel the number of venues and resume 100% of the theater ticket sales. Having experienced the trough of the epidemic and the popularity of a ticket that is hard to find, Shanghai has accepted their expectations of the stage and witnessed their growth in the theater. Perhaps it is this city that makes people in and outside the play believe in another line in the play: “Keep drinking and we will fall in love. Photography: Jiang Fan Makeup/Hairstyle: Xue Ning Written by: Ai Rui The rehearsal room of the Rainbow Choir smelled of evening self-study classrooms. Wang Xin, who is in the male low voice, is responsible for training the team members’ vocalizations. With open mouth, the voice resonates in the mouth. Don’t sink, nor be too high or flat. “Mao–” Do it again. Lao Wang focused on the basic knowledge points. The absolute leader of the choir, Jin Chengzhi, was both the creator and conductor of the work, and at this time he was responsible for giving the best solution to the problem. The members began to sing a whole sentence in a chorus, and the old Jin would sort out the frustration of the sentence and the flow of emotion. The conductor’s ears are very pointed, and can accurately pick out intonation problems that are extremely difficult for ordinary people to distinguish. A Yiyin, each member of the male voice group is individually pronounced one by one, just like the teacher asks a question, a group of people line up to write the answer on the blackboard in turn. There are also people who fall into long hesitation at the first sound. Following the metaphor of the self-study classroom, they have written an equal sign, and the chalk hangs in the air and dare not move. Everyone waited for the second sound, and a few seconds later, there was a chuckle in the rehearsal room. Relax for a while, then you can change your sitting posture a little bit. After the three short verses were lined up, the group members filed out from the large practice room and began to practice in different parts. There are more than ten individuals in each voice, each looking for a small room to correct the details over and over again. Then the cycle advances until the three-hour rehearsal is officially over. It’s hard to imagine this kind of rehearsal happening once a week in a building in the old wharf all year round. Most of the group members settled in Shanghai, some drove from Hangzhou, and even flew over from Guangzhou. “It may seem to ordinary people that with this kind of rehearsal intensity, 70% attendance in a year is good. But for us… if you are absent from 30% of rehearsals, you may have to quit the group.” Chorus male Gao Ning in the high voice told the truth. There were 90 people in the whole group, some left and some stayed in the middle, and more than 30% of them maintained full-time rehearsal. There is a proposition that has been repeatedly mentioned by many people in the music circle and the media: The Rainbow Choir can only happen in Shanghai. There is no way to prove it and it cannot be overturned, but Gao Ning and Jin Chengzhi also agree with this statement. On the one hand, the existence of the rainbow requires a big city as a background to find so many people who have the basic professional level and love the form of choirs to “generate power for love”; on the other hand, this big city has It must be tolerant so that this group of people can do something that has no “profit” for many years. Jin Chengzhi saw it even more openly: “I have set up a stage here, and I can’t expect anyone to be on stage forever.” But this stage does exist here, and the members happen to be there. In January 2016, the Rainbow Chorus gave a song “Zhang Shichao, where did you put the keys of my house last night?” 》Break out of the circle. People who know Rainbow because of the “Divine Comedy” will have a large part of their knowledge of choirs on these tracks. Speaking of Rainbow, the first reaction is “Oh, just sing those joke songs.” From Jin Chengzhi to the league members, everyone has long been accustomed to accepting such misreadings. The Divine Comedy was born in Wujiaochang, which is the most student-like place in Shanghai. At that time, the rainbow was supported by Lao Jin alone, looking for a rehearsal room, looking for performance opportunities; the money was earned by Lao Jin as a choir conductor at Wujiaochang University, and Jiyou sincerely invited him to live with Wujiaochang. , “Zhang Shichao” was born in the dark. Jin Chengzhi had originally planned to go abroad in 2016 and wanted to temporarily entrust the group to his friends, who also bluntly said that he might not have the energy to take care of it. On the world line without “Zhang Shichao”, the rainbow should just stop. “Zhang Shichao” modified the rainbow’s world line and also changed the trajectory of Lao Jin’s life. After the Divine Comedy, Rainbow was suddenly able to accept business, at least solving the problem of survival. “Cultivating serious repertoires with out-of-the-loop divine music” was once regarded as an operation method with a practical Shanghai flavor. In March of this year, the chorus began a tour of the suite “Star River Hotel”, which is expected to end in the summer; during the tour, the members will re-listen Jin Chengzhi’s 2018 work “White Horse Village Travels”, preparing to start another tour in July. wheel. Jin Chengzhi can be regarded as a highly productive and highly disciplined creator. “Ze Ya Ji” in 2016, followed by “Luoxia Ji”, “Baima Village Travel Notes”, “Jiaxuan Long and Short Sentences”, until the completion of “Star River Hotel” at the end of 2019. A year apart from the epidemic, it was produced at the frequency of one set per year. There are also surprising differences between these sets. In the travel notes of Baima Village, he used Wenzhou dialect to call “Three Realms of Emperors and Heavens”, which was very emotional; Jiaxuan asked the ancient Chinese expert to draw up the pronunciation of the long and short sentences, and sang the whole process in Song Chinese; when he arrived at the Star River Hotel, Lao Jin wanted to write something more straightforward, tune It’s softer, and the lyrics are simple. Lao Jin said that he was experiencing a painful period when he was writing about Galaxy Hotel, and he didn’t understand what he wanted and what he wanted to do. So he simply jumped out of the original context and made something completely different from the past. Jin Chengzhi said that he seemed to have passed the stage where others needed to like him, and he did not expect the love and understanding of those around him. At the end of “Star River Hotel”, he wrote, “I cry, I laugh, and run hard, looking for something in this defined world.” The individual’s ultimate is loneliness. But the Rainbow Choir has 90 people in the end, rehearsing every week and touring every year, doing the “Rainbow Choir” again and again. Part of the photography: Dong Tianye Image courtesy: Rainbow Chorus Written by: A Mao In the eyes of Norah, who has been talking about talk shows since the end of 2016, the talk show has gone from obscurity to household name, and has experienced two key nodes: “In 2012, Dragon TV’s “Post-80s Tonight” launched the comedy category of talk show. The era accepted by the public. After that, the market response in the first and second seasons of “Talk Show” was actually good, and it was in the third season that it really had a lot of influence.” Parallel to the timeline of online shows, there is the undercurrent of the offline talk show market in Shanghai. As early as around 2010, Shanghai already had an English talk show club. It’s just that at that time, and even to this day, the actors who speak English talk show are not full-time. At first they were mostly foreigners working in Shanghai, and now they have gradually joined many Chinese who like this form of performance. “The earliest talk show in China should have gradually spread from Dong Duxiao in Hong Kong to Shenzhen and Guangzhou, but the market in Shanghai was opened by the English talk show.” Including Norah herself joined the industry, but also because she is a viewer of the English talk show. One day, she found that she could also go up and say a few minutes of jokes, and only then began her life as a part-time talk show actor who went to work during the day and performed at night. Norah also analyzed why the comedy form of talk show is particularly suitable for the city of Shanghai. “Like lazy jazz, an art form that may seem indifferent, is more popular in Shanghai.” Correspondingly, rock and cross talk are clearly labeled as “northern”. They may be more intense emotional expressions, or It is a language expression with a stronger structure and a stronger sense of ritual in the city. Whether it’s jazz or talk show, or even the Chinese-style “talk show” stand-up comics that have been gradually developed in Shanghai since the end of Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, these performances do not need to incubate special emotions. Walk into the theater and enjoy a relaxing night with a relaxed and flexible attitude. Especially for talk shows, you can even order a glass of wine and watch while drinking. This lifestyle is simply tailor-made for the city of Shanghai. “The first way to chase offline audiences is to like an actor. For example, they think that an actor is funny or handsome, or some people say they like me because of my rich work experience. The second is to follow the trend and talk shows. It is indeed a very fashionable thing in the past year. If you can buy tickets for popular actors, you can show off a wide range of channels. It is a very’net celebrity check-in’ thing.” An audience member who has been watching offline performances since 2018 is still reminiscing about the “small and beautiful” scene at that time: “The ticket price for the opening of wheat at the beginning was only 2.33 yuan, and the official performance was about tens to more than 100 Basically, you can buy it if you want to see it on the same day.” In contrast, it’s hard to find a single ticket now-the audience that likes talk shows is growing exponentially, even if talk show head companies like Xiaoguo have already Through various methods, we are creating more opportunities for the audience, such as upgrading performance venues, adding theaters, and even some performances have gone out of a small theater with one or two hundred people, and entered a large theater with thousands of people.. But whenever night falls, In Shanghai, under the stage where the big curtain is about to kick off and the talk show will begin, there are still crowds of spectators who have finally gotten their tickets. Everyone came from all over the city, just to forget the troubles during the day and concentrate on it. Have a big laugh. Picture provided by: Xiaoguo Culture Interview/Writer: Zhang Fan
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