On 18 November 2020, sponsored by the Culture and Education Office of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, and organized by the Shanghai Campus Dramatic Text Incubation Center and the Playwriting Studies Centre of Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), the Playwriting Workshop on Short Plays for Schools in Shanghai (Fall 2020) opened in the Red Building of Shanghai Theatre Academy. Huang Changyong, Deputy Party Secretary and President of STA, Hu Min, Deputy Party Secretary of STA, Chen Hua, Director of the Department of Sports, Health and Arts of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, Ye Changhai, Director of the Advanced Drama Research Institute of STA, Yi Tianfu, Dean of the Stage Design Department and Director of the Performing Arts Center of STA, Chen Jun, Dean of the Dramatic Literature Department of STA, and all members of the teaching team, including professors Lu Jun, Yao Kougen and Huang Xi etc, participated in the opening ceremony together.
The opening ceremony was presided over by Professor Lu Jun, founder of playwriting workshop and chairman of STA’s academic committee. He briefly reviewed the teaching philosophy, achievements and social response of the workshop since its inception, and explained the enrollment and teaching arrangements of the current workshop. Then, Director Chen Hua delivered a speech on behalf of the Department of Sports, Health and Arts of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and the Shanghai Municipal Culture and Education Office. Hu Min, Deputy Party Secretary of STA, delivered a speech on behalf of STA. Chen Yulu, a teacher from the Shanghai School for Children with Visual Impairment, also spoke as a student representative. Finally, Huang Changyong, President of STA, made a concluding speech.
After the opening ceremony, Professor Lu Jun gave the first lecture of the current Playwriting workshop for the students. Taking the seven typical playwriting training methods in the field of playwriting teaching in China and abroad as the breakthrough point, he guided the students to establish the correct drama concept and drama thinking through the analysis of key points and the sharing of examples, and mainly introduced the gist of training of this playwriting workshop, i.e. the core, the eye and the heart of drama.
31 key teachers and cultural officials from various educational and cultural organizations in Shanghai and 77 current students of STA were selected to become the students of this playwriting workshop. The auditors (observers) from other provinces and municipalities will also participate in the training of the entire workshop. Under the guidance of the teachers, all of them will spend 10 weeks trying to write original scripts of 100-word drama, 1,000-word drama and 10,000-word drama step by step, while the excellent works will have the opportunity for stage performance. The learning results of students in this workshop will be presented in the form of script reading at STA in January 2021.
