What's on

Sam Tsui: The Gold Jacket Tour

When: Nov 29, 7:30 pm

Where: Shanghai Mao Livehouse

Internet celebrity Sam Tsui will begin The Gold Jacket Tour this month in support of his latest album Trust and new single Gold Jacket.

Tsui debuted his own social media channel in 2011 and was featured on Britney Spear's official website with the cover of the song Hold It Against Me. Tsui is known for covering songs by popular artists including Adele, Spears, Justin Timberlake and many more.

While studying at Yale University, Tsui was able to utilize tools of the digital music age to independently create a popular channel and brand.

Chopiniana, Scheherazade and The Firebird

The Mariinsky Ballet

When: Dec 1, 7:30 pm

Where: National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing

The history of St Petersburg's Mariinsky Ballet is closely linked with the history of European choreographic art. At the turn of the 19th century, it produced great dancers such as Mathilde Kschessinska, Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Vaslav Nijinsky. Many of them brought glory to Russian ballet during the legendary Saisons Russes in Paris.

In the 1920s when Fyodor Lopukhov, a daring innovator and a brilliant connoisseur, became head of the company, its repertoire was enriched with new productions and retained classical masterpieces. At that time, drama exerted a huge influence on ballet.

Since the 20rh century, the company has actively collaborated with leaders in the field of world choreography. The company has worked with John Neumeier, William Forsythe, Angelin Preljocaj, Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor and Hans van Manen.

Garage

When: Dec 5-8, 12-15, 19-22, 7:30 pm; Dec 7, 8, 14, 15, 21 and 22, 10:30 am, 2:30 pm and 5:30 pm

Where: Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center

Machines, mechanics, two men and one hen.

Garage is a humorous and noisy theater performance that smells of oil and gasoline. The play takes place in a mechanical workshop environment where the audience meet two men in filthy coveralls. They are passionate and curious, with a strong fascination for how everything around them works. They have machines and engines that can solve the challenges they encounter during the day.

A hen also lives in the workshop. The hen lays a new egg every day, the only food source for the mechanics.

Garage wants to give the audience different aesthetics than is often associated with theater for children. The performance has no dialogue, but a lot of mechanics. It was developed by Cirka Teater, a theater company in Norway.

Flowers for Algernon

When: Dec 11-15, 18-22, 7:30 pm; Dec 14, 15, 21 and 22, 2:30 pm

Where: Shanghai PG Theater

Based on the novel of the same title by Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon tackles many complex issues from the mistreatment and misunderstanding of the mentally challenged to the meaning of existence and the human condition. These are issues that people often tackle privately but have consequences for society in general.

The science fiction story, written in 1958, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960. It is a character study of Charlie Gordon.

Gordon is a 32-year-old developmentally challenged man who has the opportunity to undergo a surgical procedure that will dramatically increase his mental capabilities. This procedure had already been performed on a laboratory mouse, Algernon, with remarkable results.

Cosi Fan Tutte

When: Dec 14, 7:30 pm; Dec 15, 2:30 pm

Where: Guangzhou Opera House

Cosi Fan Tutte (All Women Do the Same) is a comic opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It premiered in Vienna in January 1790 and is the last of Mozart's three operas; the first two being The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. The story takes place in Naples during the late 18th century.

Two young couples are on the edge of adulthood but are still inexperienced in the ways of the world and unsure of the boundaries between what is real and what is fantasy.

Enter the world of the hardened cynic Alfonso, who tempts Guglielmo and Ferrando into a wager over the fidelity of their respective sweethearts, Fiordiligi and Dorabella.

Dans la Solitude des Champs de Coton

When: Dec 17 and 18, 7:30 pm

Where: Shanghai Grand Theater

Dans la Solitude des Champs de Coton (In the Solitude of Cotton Fields) is a modern French classic by playwright Bernard-Marie Koltes (1948-89).

The show follows a dealer and a client as they meet at a corner on a dark night to make a deal. What kind of deal? What is being dealt? What is the purpose of this deal?

These are all questions that suffuse the audience, as each character essentially swaps philosophical monologues on the theoretical concept of a "deal", without outwardly stating what this deal involves.

A Dream Like A Dream

When: Dec 20-24, 2 pm

Where: Beijing Poly Theater

Renowned theater director Stan Lai has brought his play A Dream Like A Dream back to Beijing Poly Theater. It is an eight-hour epic that literally places the audience in the heart of the drama.

Watching this eight-hour production is in itself something like a dream. The plotline tells several interwoven stories, beginning with a medical school graduate's first day at a hospital, during which four of her five patients die. None of her medical knowledge can stop it until she turns to psychology for her fifth patient.

Lai has been described by the BBC as "probably the best Chinese language playwright and director in the world". The play features over 100 characters from a cast of 29 established performers.