Source: China Youth Daily

Author: Wang Yejie, Report of China Youth Daily & China Youth Daily Online

On 13 June, the STA Experimental Theatre reopened after 145 days of closure. And, the first play for public performance after the reopening was “Nurse’s Diary”, a large-scale original drama on fighting COVID-19 outbreak. As China’s first large-scale drama on fighting COVID-19 outbreak, this play has been jointly presented by the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) and the Publicity Department of CPC Songjiang District Committee.

The sudden COVID-19 outbreak has made everyone experience growth in different ways. “Nurse’s Diary” focuses on the theme of "growth", vividly displays the lives of many different people under the major test imposed by the pandemic, pays homage to medical workers, pays homage to the great fighting spirit against the pandemic, pays homage to the hard-won good life, and pays homage to the upcoming "1 July " (the birthday of the Communist Party of China).

It is worth noting that “Nurse's Diary” is the first play in the history of STA that has gone from online to offline. The crew set-up and rehearsal of the play began on “cloud”. As early as 9 March this year, when the situation of COVID-19 prevention and control was not completely stable yet, the crew set-up meeting of “Nurse’s Diary” was held online.

In the three months going from online to offline, “Nurse’s Diary” was first made into a radio play of the same name, which was uploaded onto the Himalaya FM platform on 12 May, i.e. the International Nurses Day, for the public to listen to. The creation route of this play also provides a new experience for rehearsal of theatrical works in the future, and will encourage STA to further explore the development trend of performing arts in the internet environment, thus turning this passive action caused by the COVID-19 outbreak into the active action in the future.

“Nurse's Diary” gathers a galaxy of excellent creative personnel of STA. Professor Lu Jun, one of the playwrights, has had 36 large-scale plays put on the stage, and the script of this play has been revised for no less than six times in order to strive for perfection. Professor Yi Tianfu, Dean of the Department of Stage Design, is the director of the play and is in charge of the stage design and lighting design. His works have won the "Five One Project" Award and Mandarin Award for many times. Professor Xu Jiahua, the chief designer for costume, make-up and modeling for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, is in charge of the costume, make-up and modeling design of this play. The cast is composed of Liu Wanling, Wang Su, He Yan, Wang Xueming, Li Chuanying, Xue Guanglei, Wan liming, Xia Shuai, Xiekezati and other accomplished actors and actresses from STA. Shen Taoran, a young actor, and Li Bing, a TV host at the Shanghai TV Station, are also among the cast.

As it was reported, "Nurse’s Diary" is another work on major subject matter that STA has presented since the launch of four works on red theme (i.e. large-scale original drama "Military Song", symphony dance poem "Yellow River", Peking opera "Commander Mu Guiying" and large-scale recitation drama "Huang Yanpei" on the occasion of celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China last year. According to Xie Wei, Party Secretary of STA, "Nurse’s Diary" is the first work that has been approved since STA promulgated the administrative measures for the production of major creation and performance projects and cooperative creation and performance projects.