December 1 this year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA). As an important art university in China, the Shanghai Theatre Academy has cultivated a large number of talents in drama, film, television, Chinese opera and dance for a long time. To this end, the Acting Department, as the main faculty of STA, has also achieved first-class results.
Now, it is scheduled that the "Academic Seminar on Acting and Directing in Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Professor Chen Mingzheng's Art Career" will be held on Tuesday 8 December 2020. The seminar aims to learn from Professor Chen Mingzheng's practical experience and theoretical contribution in performance teaching and drama creation through various forms such as theoretical discussion, exchange of views and teachers’ workshop.
Professor Chen Mingzheng is a leading figure in the theatre actor training and theatre director creation in China, as well as a pioneer and explorer of the "localization of Stanislavsky system in China". Professor Chen Mingzheng's career in theatre actor training and theatre director creation has been accompanied by the development and change of Stanislavsky's realistic acting system in China, by the vigorous exploration of theatre nationalization in the new period of reform and opening-up, and by the lively prosperity of adhering to realism as the main method of creation and also embracing the methods of various theatre schools.
Chen Mingzheng, born in 1931, a professor and doctoral supervisor of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, graduated from the Acting Department of Shanghai Theatre Academy in 1954 and was appointed to the faculty upon graduation. His previous positions included: dean of the Acting Department of Shanghai Theatre Academy, vice chairman of the Academic Committee and chairman of the Performance Committee of Shanghai Theatre Academy, director of the Shanghai Theatre Association, deputy principle of the Xie Jin Film and Television College of Shanghai Normal University, judge of the Shanghai Culture Outstanding Contribution Award, and judge of the Shanghai Magnolia Theatre Award.
It has been 70 years since Chen Mingzheng entered the Shanghai Theatre Academy to study and work, during which time he has trained many excellent drama talents and directed more than 70 Chinese and foreign dramas. Professor Chen Mingzheng has inherited the excellent tradition of Chinese drama art, systematically and comprehensively mastered the Stanislavsky system from the perspective of drama practice, and he has written dozens of research papers on actor teaching methodology and many academic works. "Introduction to Acting for Film, Television and Theatre" (DVD), in which he did the demonstration teaching, was distributed nationwide, and was praised by the media as "a systematic visual teaching material that is of high quality, appealing and demonstrative".
The Shanghai Theatre Academy accounts for half of China's theatre education and talent training. Professor Chen Mingzheng is the inheritor of the fine tradition of actor training in the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and is the first generation of theatre educator trained after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Since he retired at the age of 70, he has remained active in the front line of actor training. When he was 80 years old, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and the Shanghai Theatre Academy established a "Performing Arts Innovation Studio" for him. In his teaching career over the past 60 years, Professor Chen Mingzheng has trained a large number of famous actors and directors. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the cultivation of students of the Inner Mongolia class, he was awarded the "National Excellent Teaching Achievement Award" by the State Education Commission. His directing works have won the second and fourth "Wenhua Director’s Award" and “Wenhua Grand Award" given by the Ministry of Culture, the "Five-One Project Award" and the "Baosteel Honorary Gold Award for Culture and Art". He was nominated for the "Shanghai Culture Outstanding Contribution Award" twice. Professor Chen Mingzheng is known as "a flag of southern drama" by the drama circle.
