Brilliant productions to play big part in theater festival

At the upcoming 2025 Shanghai Jing'an Theater Festival, 20 plays will be staged from April 25 to June 2. Over 85 percent of the productions will make their Shanghai debut and half are from overseas.

Julie by the International Theater Amsterdam is one of the overseas shows premiering in Shanghai. The Dutch company is particularly good at interpreting classic masterpieces from a modern perspective, says Xu Zhongping, the festival's program director.

This production of Julie premiered in 2022 and is a subversive adaptation of Miss Julie by Swedish playwright August Strindberg from women's perspectives. "We hope to bring shows on the frontier of the global theater scene and new theater experiences that break boundaries," Xu says.

The theater scene has made a full recovery and "a large number of brilliant productions have mushroomed worldwide, many of which are interested in presenting their shows in China", according to Xu.

"Over the years, many brilliant plays from around the world premiered in Shanghai at this festival, including some exclusively performed in Shanghai," says Yu Rongjun, deputy director of SMG(Shanghai Media Group) Live. "We have seen many shows embarking on tours across China, following their success here."

Last year, Canadian theater director Robert Lepage presented his first show on the Chinese mainland. The production 887 made five performances at the festival. "We had around 70 percent of the tickets sold for the first two shows," Xu, the program director, recalls. "And after opening night, tickets to the following shows rapidly sold out."