Recently, an original drama called "Our Cherry Orchard" was staged in the STA Experimental Theatre. The three performances featured two versions, i.e. (1) the STA version by students of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) and (2) the co-performance version by drama clubs of four universities.
This way of artistic creation and exchange by which students of an art university and students from drama clubs of non-art universities perform the same script in the same theater has been based on the innovative idea of establishing a dramatic arts exchange platform for university students.
The dramatic arts exchange platform for university students was planned and launched by graduate students of art administration of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), and jointly operated by a number of drama clubs of universities at home and abroad. The opening ceremony of the platform was held online on 20 September. The purpose of the platform is to promote the exchange and cooperation between students of art universities and drama clubs of other universities, so as to not only promote a wider audience coverage of the productions created and performed by students of art universities, but also provide more professional and richer art resources for drama clubs of non-art universities, thus exploring an ongoing and win-win exchange mechanism with university students as the main players. A total of 11 drama clubs of domestic and foreign universities were the first to join the platform.
In the first exchange season of the platform, the four-act drama "Our Cherry Orchard" created by Yin Ruilin, a graduate student of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, was selected for incubation, and STA and the drama clubs of several universities set up the crews at the same time. The "co-performance version" from drama clubs of other universities selected the best one of the four drama clubs to perform each act. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary celebration of STA, the version co-performed by the Menggongchang Drama Club of Shanghai University of Engineering Science, the Manaka Experimental Drama Club of Shanghai Jiaotong University, the Qingniao Drama Club of Shanghai University and the Dongli Drama Club of Tongji University and the STA version were staged respectively at STA. When recognizing the effect of the performances, the audience also recognized the innovative mode of co-performance by four drama clubs of different universities.
Since the operation started, the platform has held a number of art exchange activities in an online and offline-combined way.
