16 July 2018
It is now hot summer in Shanghai. During the summer vacation, schools are quiet, and teachers and students are resting. But, the playwriting workshop on “hundred, thousand and ten thousand-character plays” is extraordinarily busy with lectures, discussions, topic selection, conception and playwriting day after day from morning till mid-night. Teachers from dozens of schools in more than 10 districts and counties of Shanghai and students coming from eight regions of China, such as Beijing, Sichuan, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, are working hard enjoyably here at the workshop.
The playwriting workshop on “hundred, thousand and ten-thousand-character plays” was first created by Lu Jun, famous professor at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and is one of the programs of the Lu Jun Screenwriting Innovation Studio under the Model Worker Innovation Studio Initiative of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.
On the basis of summarizing the 70 years' teaching experience in playwriting of the Shanghai Theater Academy, Professor Lu Jun, the founder of the program, has condensed and refined the core courses of the four-year undergraduate program and three-year MFA program of the playwriting major that teach the playwriting theories and techniques into the training model of hundred-character plays, thousand-character plays and ten thousand-character plays, so that the trainees may grasp the essence of playwriting skills in a short time, and may effectively comb and noticeably improve their creative attainments and playwriting skills on the basis of their original standing.
The mission of basic education is to lay the foundation for every child's academic development and personality development, enhance the holistic healthy growth and advance the increase of value of life. The mature experience both in China and in the world has proved the importance of drama education to children and students. In recent years, our country has attached great importance to the work of bringing drama into school campus. The Publicity Department of CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Culture have jointly issued the Implementation Opinions on Bringing Drama into School Campus..
While specifically discussing the value of the playwriting workshop on "hundred-character, thousand-character and ten thousand-character plays", the following aspects should not be underestimated:
A. Changing from watching drama to performing drama is a leap forward type of improvement of students' comprehensive quality.
B. Solving the problem of training playwriting talents will solve the bottleneck problem of students performing drama.
C. With scientific training methods, teachers can be developed into playwrights in a short time.
D. There must be a group of special "sowers" to “pass on the torch”.
After the story of this workshop was broadcast by Xinhua.Net, the number of readers reached almost 1 million in three days. During the 15 days of intensive training, the trainees were greatly inspired to work diligently every day even forgetting about eating and sleep, and they put pressure on themselves and improve rapidly. There will surely be more playwrights emerging from them, who will play an important role in bringing drama into school campus and making it a common practice.
