2 December 2019
On 1 December which coincided with the 74th anniversary of the founding of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), the school song of STA written by Tian Han, the lyricist of the National Anthem of the People's Republic of China, in 1947 at the invitation of Xiong Foxi, then principal of the Shanghai Municipal Experimental Drama School (the predecessor of STA), was sung again in the STA Theatre, and this time it was because the premier of the original master play Xiong Foxi took place here.
Xiong Foxi was one of the former presidents of STA, a famous drama educator and playwright, and one of the pioneers and founders of Chinese drama. In his whole life, he created 27 multi-act plays and 16 single-act plays, published seven drama series, and wrote many theoretical monographs.
For drama education, Xiong Foxi always advocated educational democracy and academic freedom, and insisted that drama teaching should not be confined to the classroom, but must include stage practice. He advocated that the recruitment of teachers must be based on “real competence irrespective of where they come from.
The master play Xiong Foxi chooses several fragments of Xiong Foxi’s career, and interprets Xiong Foxi in different background of times and from different aspects through the performance of four STA alumni, telling about Xiong Foxi’s deeds of cherishing talents, respecting teachers, taking care of staff like a family member and educating students like a loving father during the period from the time when he took office as the principal of the Shanghai Municipal Experimental Drama School in the late 1940s to the time when he passed away in 1965 at the post of President of STA.
The playwright of the master play “Xiong Foxi” is Sun Zuping, the artist director is Xiong Yuanwei, and the director is Xiong Mengchu, grandson of Xiong Foxi. The actors are all alumni, teachers and students of STA. The creation, production and successful performance of this play attributes to the joint support of the Master Play Creation Project of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and the Shanghai Culture-Education Integrated Creation Project.
