New theaters raising the bar for quality acts

The National Theatre of Scotland will perform Dunsinane in China next year. Provided to China Daily

British architect, the late Mark Fisher, who designed stage sets for Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Lady Gaga, built the stage for Wanda. Franco Dragone, a theater director from Italy, has been hired to create a site-specific live show for the new venue, temporarily named The Han Show. Dragone came to prominence for his work with Cirque du Soleil and Celine Dion.

Wanda plans to invest a total of 2.5 billion yuan ($411 million) in the project. The Han Show will have its grand premiere at the new theater on Dec 20 next year, according to Xiao Ke, vice-director of the marketing department, Wanda Arts and Entertainment Management Co. Ltd.

Xiao and her colleagues were in Shanghai to promote two other big-budget musical theater shows by Wanda, a play named Heaven and Earth: Epic of Changbai Mountain, and Spiral Show, a multimedia musical, which cost 60 million yuan to produce. Spiral Show started as a resident program at Haitang Bay Theater in Sanya, Hainan province. Wanda has taken it on tour, and given more than 20 shows all over China.

"We have our main business in real estate, so we don't judge the performance of our cultural programs by the ticket income alone," Xiao told China Daily.

For example, the new theater in Wuhan will be part of the new Wanda City compound, which integrates lifestyle, shopping, star-rated hotels, a park and entertainment facilities.

"Cultural and arts programs will help raise the value of the property," Xiao says.

Songcheng Tourism Development Co. Ltd based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, is expanding its tourism business to theater too, planning to open seven new theaters by next spring, when the China Performing Arts Valley is launched at Songcheng. By next October a theater festival will be held there. Songcheng has provided the first-phase funding of 30 million yuan in support of new theater.

"We are China's one and only listed performing arts company," says Tang Xiaohui, general manager of China Performing Arts Valley with Hangzhou Songcheng Tourism Development Co. Ltd. "We feel responsible and believe it's profitable to invest in theater - especially since Songcheng already has a successful large-scale live show targeting a tourist audience."

More theater shows will attract tourists to stay overnight in the area, and that will bring profit to the tourism business, he says.