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The Beijing People's Art Theatre, China's premier professional theatre company, has in the past 50 years codified modern Chinese theatre, presenting to date more than 12,500 performances of 250 productions.
The company was founded in 1952, soon after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, when the North China People's Art Theatre and the drama troupe of the Central Academy of Drama merged. The company was modelled after the Moscow People's Art Theatre, with master playwright Cao Yu serving as its founding president, and Jiao Juyin its first general director. During the company's first decade, audiences were introduced to epoch-making works by Lao She (Teahouse, Rickshaw Boy) and Cao Yu (Sunrise, Thunderstorm) in a distinctive theatrical style dubbed by critics “poetic realism", combining principles and ideas from traditional Chinese opera with elements borrowed from Bertolt Brecht and Konstantin Stanislavsky (founder of the Moscow People's Art Theatre).
After the Cultural Revolution, which had disrupted the careers of many theatre professionals, the company thrived a new, extending its repertoire into freshly translated works and new works by young Chinese dramatists.
The company broke more new ground in 1983 when it invited playwright Arthur Miller to direct a production of what was seen at the time as a uniquely American drama “Death of a Salesman,” an experience Miller recounted in the form of a day-to-day diary in his book Salesman in Beijing.
Other plays from the West presented by the Theatre include The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, The Gin Game, and The Threepenny Opera, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the recent Broadway/West End hit Copenhagen. Of the new works developed in the past two decades, The World's Top Restaurant (1988) by female dramatist He Jiping has been heralded as a successor to Lao She's Teahouse. The World's Top Restaurant chronicles the history of a Peking roast duck restaurant over the period of half a century.
Teahouse is the cornerstone of the company's repertory and has been revived several times since its 1958 premiere, which was directed by Jiao Juyin. Since its premiere, Teahouse has had more than 500 performances and been seen by more than 500,000 audience members in China, as well as Asia and Europe. In 2005, Beijing People's Art Theatre made its United States debut with productions of “Tea House” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University in New York City.
The theater's acclaimed artists now include Lin Zhaohua, Guo Qihong, Li Longyun, Gu Wei, Lu Zhong, Xiu Zongdi, Wang Ling, Ren Ming, Pu Cumin, Yang Da, Liang Guanhua, Yang Lixin, Zhang Zhizhong, Xu Fan, Song Dandan, Zhen Tianwei, Feng Yuanzheng, He Bing, Gong Lijun and Chen Xiaoyi.
Beijing People's Art Theatre
No. 22, Wangfujing Avenue,
Dongcheng District,
Post code: 100006
Beijing
http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Festival/143211.htm
Here are few videos reflect some of their work.