The new national style environmental drama "New Dragon Gate Inn" began to preview in March last year and was sold out until February 4 next year. On December 17, 2023, a new round of ticketing was held for the show, which lasted from December 22 to February 4, 2024, and tickets for each show were sold out within a minute. Such a situation has become the norm in "New Dragon Gate Inn".
Han Kun, the founder of a good show, the producer and chief producer of "New Dragon Gate Inn", said in an exclusive interview with Jiefang ** Shangguan News: "From the preview of "New Dragon Gate Inn" in March this year to May, every "New Dragon Gate Inn" can be sold out, but it is definitely not as good as now, the tickets are sold out immediately, and the audience continues to pour in. "New Dragon Gate Inn" is co-produced by Baiyue Cultural and Creative and Yihaoxi, and will usher in 150 performances next month. The show became a theatrical hit in 2023 at a rocket-like pace, and its gestation period can be traced back to 2021.
Mao Weitao, chairman of Baiyue Cultural and Creative Industries, first visited the Asia Tower of Shanghai Performing Arts World in May 2021. He pondered whether he could transplant the small theater ** drama to Asia Building, and a good play became the first production company to enter Asia Building. On August 28, 2020, a good drama "Apollonia" premiered at 1 Star Gallery of Asia Tower, becoming the first small theater work to meet the audience in Asia Tower.
Mao Weitao once asked Han Kun if "Apollonia" and "Santa Lucia" could be performed at the Butterfly Theater run by Baiyue Cultural and Creative, and mentioned in passing that it would be better if Yue Opera could be presented in a similar form. Mao Weitao hopes to transplant traditional Yue opera to small theaters, such as "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai" and "The Legend of the White Snake", the former has a ready-made new repertoire, while the latter takes place in West Lake and can be performed at the lakeside theater.
Although a good drama has no experience in opera production, Han Kun is well versed in the traffic code to attract young audiences: "When I mention "New Dragon Gate Inn", my first reaction is that Yingying Yanyan's Jiangnan opera and the desert lonely smoke martial arts film will produce a very big contrast. From a commercial point of view, "New Dragon Gate Inn" has more points to explore than traditional opera. "This play is quite distinctive in terms of duration, singing, stage design, and even involves the use of platform boots.
Han Kun emphasized that their goal is to create a great drama that is more inclined to the style of the first drama, rather than intervening too much in the content of the script. He took the "length of a single song" as an example to point out the difference between Yue Opera and ** Opera: "In Yue Opera, actors can sing for up to six or seven minutes, more to show their personal strength and express their emotions. In the play, the song is more used to advance the plot, and after the interpretation of a plot, the actor will immediately enter the performance of the next plot and will not be entangled in a singing.
Mao Weitao is committed to ensuring that "New Dragon Gate Inn" continues to move forward on the road of integrity and innovation. "Most of the younger audiences, or non-Yue opera audiences, have embraced our innovative approach. In terms of the content of Yue Opera, we did not innovate too much, and Mr. Mao's presence as the artistic director gave the crew a great sense of security. Chan Kwok Leung is responsible for the design of the singing voice, creating different genres of singing for different characters.
Han Kun said: "There are five groups of actors from Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe, Wenzhou Yue Opera Troupe and socially recruited actors. This is exactly the operation mode of the ** drama project that I am familiar with, a good drama and Baiyue Cultural and Creative jointly produced "New Dragon Gate Inn", and invited Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe and Wenzhou Yue Opera Troupe to participate as performance teams.
The Butterfly Theater has a complete large theater and a black box theater, and Mao Weitao has invested millions of yuan to develop and innovate for "New Dragon Gate Inn" and build a new small theater: the audience seats are close at hand, the stage presents a slope of about 10 degrees, and the immersive design is reminiscent of "Apollonia" and "Santa Lucia". The rehearsal time for "New Dragon Gate Inn" lasted from October last year to February this year. After the Spring Festival, the crew began to synthesize the venue, and it was not until March that "New Dragon Gate Inn" met the audience for the first time.
Han Kun observed: "It's quite challenging for the actors. Yue opera performers are accustomed to performing on the framed stage of large and medium-sized theaters, keeping a distance of 10 meters from the audience, but now they need to adjust the four skills and five methods, because the audience is only one or two meters away from the stage. In addition, Yue Opera itself does not involve martial arts scenes, so we had to look for martial arts instructors, and for the first time, the girls wore platform boots and performed and fought on a sloping stage, showing the charm of opera and especially Kunsheng.
"New Dragon Gate Inn" draws on the elements of immersive ** drama and adds plot interaction. For example, when Qianhu was inspecting with Zhou Huai'an's portrait, the actor would go to the audience to compare the portraits one by one and interact with the audience: "Who are you here with?"."When confronted with a responsive audience, the actors react immediately, making the interaction more lively. In addition, "Gold Inlaid Jade" and "Jia Ting" will also interact in circles in the audience.
Mao Weitao's IP attracted the audience of "New Dragon Gate Inn" that premiered in March, half of them were loyal Mao Weitao IP fans, and the other half were audiences who loved ** dramas. A good show organized a high-level member event and invited them to Hangzhou to watch the premiere of "New Dragon Gate Inn". The members evaluated the repertoire and defined it as a "traditional Chinese opera" and gave it the nickname "Little Inn", as in "Apollonia", jokingly called "The Tavern".
In July, a good show began to invite Internet influencers to watch the drama, striving to reach a wider audience. They hope to spread "New Dragon Gate Inn" through the word-of-mouth of the first-class drama audience, and word-of-mouth has been fermenting. The composition of the audience has obviously been iteratively upgraded, and the proportion of young audiences has increased from the initial 50% to 80% or even 100%. In addition to the surrounding areas of Hangzhou, audiences in Shanghai and other cities in the Yangtze River Delta also flock to the play on weekends. On August 5, "New Dragon Gate Inn" and Douyin Opera Channel launched a cooperative live broadcast.
During the whole summer vacation, a good show pushed the crew to participate in the two-dimensional event, and they walked into the comic show roadshow. In addition, the official account of "New Dragon Gate Inn", the official account of a good show, and the official account of Baiyue Cultural and Creative have been interacting with the audience, increasing the stickiness of fans. The actors Chen Lijun and Li Yunxiao, who initially sparked heated discussions on the Internet, not only interacted and circled together, but the audience also filmed the curtain call for them, which is not part of the plot, but explains why there is such an intimate interaction between "Jin Jiyu" and "Jia Ting".
Han Kun asked the actors not to simply bow and wave when they returned, but to sing an additional part of the song and then sing the encore song together, just like in the ** play. He said: "The audience has the opportunity to check in and shoot Xiao**, which has generated a lot of actor material on the Internet, and gradually achieved the effect of getting out of the circle." At first, we were looking for influencers more, but then it was the other way around, and they started to come and look for material on their own. Relying on the spread of short **, Chen Lijun and others quickly accumulated a large number of fans.
Recently, the performance of "Chen Sanliang" has sparked heated discussions, which has further strengthened the cohesion of fans. Open the fan account of "defending" Chen Lijun on the Internet, you can find that the vast majority of fans are not traditional opera audiences, nor are they even ** drama audiences. Chen Lijun is the starting point for them to understand opera. One or a few pieces can win widespread popularity, similar to a legend like Ding Zhen, which appears every few years. The stories behind the beautiful faces and the precise operation determine how long the traffic lasts.
Han Kun believes that the 31-year-old Chen Lijun is not suddenly popular, she is accumulating, has more than ten years of stage experience, and has a large number of performances for fans to "archaeology". Teacher Mao Weitao has a rich story, which can attract the post-95 and post-00 audiences and open up new horizons for them. Prior to Baiyue Cultural Creation's co-production of "New Dragon Gate Inn", Han Kun studied many of Mao Weitao's works, saying: "Actresses playing male roles can present a kind of beauty that male actors can't bring.
"New Dragon Gate Inn" is performed in an all-female class Yue opera, which will definitely attract the attention and recognition of the audience. For the audience, Chen Lijun transcends gender, which may represent their pursuit of an ideal self, or may show a yearning for the ideal opposite sex. Han Kun grew up in Enshi, Hubei Province, where he was inspired by his father to become a producer as an undergraduate in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. He then studied for a master's degree in performance production at Dongguk University in South Korea, "Every year, I do an evening for the Chinese department, and our evening party is called Xiaobaihua Literary and Art Gala.
I searched for information on the Internet, and every time I always jumped out of Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe. In September 2017, 55-year-old Mao Weitao stepped down as the head of Zhejiang Xiaobaihuayue Opera Troupe, and in March 2018, she became the chairman of Baiyue Cultural and Creative Troupe. Mao Weitao dared to innovate, and did not shy away from controversy when he came to Shanghai to tour with the new Yue opera "Kou Liulan and Du Liniang", "When I go to Beijing, I have to wear body armor, and I have to wear two pieces to Shanghai, where there are many Yue Opera fans." "When she performs in the UK, she enjoys watching dramas and operas.
In Austria, a local theater fan invited the actors to dinner, and she said, "Why don't you invite us to the play, it's too boring to eat." "Baiyue Cultural and Creative once sent Xiaobaihua young actors to South Korea for training. Mao Weitao believes that the audience and the market are the test criteria, "Many things may not necessarily become a brand when planning, but if the audience accepts it, it may naturally become a brand." "After countless drama innovations, "New Dragon Gate Inn" has finally achieved success.
Asked if Shanghai could see the model of "New Dragon Gate Inn", Han Kun said: "Yes, I am watching the next move." He also emphasized that popular models are all individual cases, and it is difficult to apply them in one model, "The biggest barrier to the content industry is the content itself." From "Apollonia" to "New Dragon Gate Inn", the right time and place are indispensable. We may continue to look for opportunities to deepen our traditional culture. "Sorry, it seems that I did not receive the full content of the article!Could you please provide us with the content of the article that needs to be rewritten?I'm going to rewrite that.