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Broadway is Approaching China |
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| Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition 2007-4-7 |
Starting from September this year, classical Broadway musicals, such as 42nd Street, Cinderella, Cats, will be shown on the stages of more than 20 cities in China. Recently, the China-U.S. joint venture -- Beijing Oriental Broadway International Theatre Management Company (BOBITMC) announced that it would establish Nederlander New Century Broadway China Network for the purpose of introducing successful business models and operational concepts of Broadway:
Broadway is Approaching China
Zhang Mian Zhu Liang
Promoting Musical in China
¡°We will invite every Chinese to dance with us¡±, said by Robert Nederlander Jr., the US investor of BOBITMC, and person in charge of Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment (NWE) when talking about 42nd Street to be put on in September. The reason why chooses this Tony Award-Winning Broadway Musicals as the debut is that it is one of the most well-known Broadway Musicals, having lavish stage effects and easy-to-understand English dialogues, which can be easily accepted by Chinese audiences. The average ticket price for the musical is RMB 300. Following it, another classical musical- the King and I will be put on stage in China within this year.
In the US, Broadway has been another name of musicals, and a culture symbol along with Hollywood. In recent years, a number of Broadway musicals landed in China and achieved a great success. For an instance, the Phantom of the Opera performed nearly 100 times in Shanghai; Cats, the Sound of Music, the Lion King also made a sensation in China. Meanwhile, Chinese musicals are willing to lag behind. Jin Sha began its performing tour around China in 2005. Till today, the play has performed 500 times and attracted 150,000 audiences. In this circumstances, NEW decided to march into Chinese musical market after 4 years¡¯ investigation.
Chen Jixin, chairman of BOBITMC believed, there¡¯s still a long way for Chinese audiences to enjoy musicals as everyday culture consumption although a large number of them have become huge fans of this artistic form. ¡°We plan to cultivate a mature audience group in 3-4 years¡±, he said. Students will be the major target in order to realize this objective in the future. To win over this group of audiences, the company will carry out a series of preferential measures, such as discount tickets, musical camp, music education inside and outside campus.
In addition, the company also plans to set up a local program production base in Changsha for the purpose of cultivating musical performance and management personnel for China. |
An actor of 42nd Street is performing in the press conference. (Shot by Ren Fengtao)
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Building a Platform for Commercial Performance
¡°Broadway China Network¡± is a market promotion channel formed by theatres, producers, audience service corporations and marketing agencies from Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, etc, for the purpose of planning and operating projects jointly. In the next few years, the network will cover over 20 second-tier cities, through which audiences could enjoy Broadway musicals as well as many others.
¡°Introducing musicals is just on the surface. What we really want to do is to learn from the successful business models and operational concepts from Broadway, and to set up a commercial platform for domestic performance industry¡±, said Chen.
¡°Broadway China Network¡± is the first nationwide Chinese performance network. Some professional in this field noted that, this, to some extent, demonstrated an industrialized operation trends in Chinese performance market. ¡°Combining theatre and performance is the trend of Chinese performance industry, of which theatre network constitutes an important part¡±, said Chen Shaofeng, deputy director of Cultural Industry Innovation & Development Academe.
In his opinion, the market value of artistic products created by Chinese could also be maximized if this network platform could be established. He also pointed out, a lot of problems on the theatre network still need to be resolved; this is only the first step toward integrating resources of performance industry.
The Role of Non-public Capital in Foreign Investment Is Increasing
¡°I think we shall encourage international mainstream enterprises and investors to co-develop our culture industry in Chinese market¡± said Chen Jixin. As one of the few international culture agents in china, he has successfully organized a serious of large-scale performances, such as ¡°the 3 Tenors, 2001 China Tour¡±, etc. He added, ¡°Our culture enterprises are still lagged behind in terms of service concept, honest awareness, talented personnel cultivation, etc. But the situations can be improved in the process of cooperating and competing with our international counterparts.¡±
BOBITMC is the first joint venture, which get the license to engage in performance agency and theatre management after the Ministry of Culture amended the Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Performing Arts in 2005. Performance industry is one of the latest culture sectors that permit foreign investment. Since China joined WTO, the proportion of overseas investment in such culture fields as publication, movie & TV production, advertising, etc, has been increasing.
Except for foreign investment, Chen Shaofeng predicted that, private enterprises would play a more and more important role in the development of culture industry in the future. For instance, Beijing Time New Century Entertainment Company, the Chinese investor of BOBITMC, is a private enterprise. Report on the Development of China's Cultural Industry (2007) indicates, non-public capital constitutes 49% of the total shares in Chinese culture industry in 2006. A plural investment structure has come into being in culture industry field.
Chen Shaofeng said, ¡°Government will further reinforce the position of non-public enterprises in the market in order to provide more spaces. This will benefit both the development and internationalization of our culture undertakings.¡± |
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