New musicals from art-nurturing project look for investors
Two original Chinese musicals that emerged from the 2021 Shanghai International Musical Festival's nurturing project met potential investors and promoters at the Huangpu Theater after months of professional mentoring and revisions.
"A Diary of You" is a fantasy story centering on a cartoonist named Nan Yibei, who hits a bottleneck and goes to look for inspiration from a dumpling shop that belonged to his late grandpa. He encounters a diary fairy in the shop, who helps him to recall memories with his grandpa and beautiful details in life.
"A Diary of You"
"I Heard You" is the story of a boy named Dong Dong, who intends to commit suicide, and a girl Dang Duo, who encounters an accident during a marathon event. Dang is given the chance to travel back time and needs Dong's help to avoid the marathon accident, which changes the fates of them both.
Each work was presented in a 40-minute preview performance at Huangpu Theater, which was attended by musical professionals, potential investors and fans. Creators of the two musicals shared their ideas and collected suggestions from the floor for future improvement.
"I Heard You"
The annual nurturing project has been organized by the SAIC Shanghai Culture Square since 2019. The three musical productions from the first year – "Lottery," "Once Upon a Time in Our Youth" and "The Throne and the Poetry" – have already met audiences in theaters.
Two works from the 2020 project, "South Wall Plan" and "Unable to Access," have found investors and producers via last year's preview stage performance and will enter theaters when they are ready for the market.
The nurturing project not only cultivate original works but also musical industry talent. Some participants of the previous editions of the project have already become contract composers and scriptwriters of some producing company.
