In the past spring semester of 2020, we all went through a special "big test". With the deployment for the opening of the fall semester nationwide being gradually put in place, we have more expectations for the coming new semester. As the fall semester of 2020 is approaching, we present this article, i.e. STA’s Answer Sheet in s "Big Test", to jointly express the best wishes to Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) for the harvest in the golden autumn after undergoing the "big test".

2 March 2020 was the day when the spring semester of STA began. This semester has a lot of special significance for STA, including the celebration of the 75th anniversary of its founding and the full opening of its new Changlin Road Campus which was completed last autumn. However, for the reason that everyone knows, the campus was very quiet when the spring came, as if all this was making the most real annotation for COVID-19 that was sweeping the globe.

This was destined to be an unusual "new semester opening". On 2 March, the “Key Points of Party and Administrative Work of Shanghai Theatre Academy in 2020” was released. The teaching work of STA was fully carried out online according to the previously scheduled timetable, and all other work was also carried out orderly according to the changes in the situation of COVID-19 prevention and control.

A special semester was opened in a special way. This was a total battle that had been put into full play involving all functional offices, departments/colleges and affiliated schools of STA. It was a special answer sheet written by STAers with full devotion, which will surely add a significant chapter in the history of STA.

Online classes! When educators across the country received this instruction, most of the teachers in STA felt confused, stressed and at a loss. Not to mention the lack of practical experience in online courses, how to conduct the classes for a considerable number of courses with obvious practical characteristics in art majors if teachers cannot be face-to-face with students to teach orally and inspire their true understanding within was obviously a practical problem. In the face of the problem and unknown areas, the teachers of STA took action and made extensive practical exploration. For a time, the atmosphere of exploring and discussing online teaching become unprecedented warm among teachers.

At the same time, STA launched 15 online courses with specialized characteristics of STA, including “Art China”, “Appreciation of Chinese Operas”, “Influence Starting from Language – STA Actor’s Lines”, “Peking Opera Instrumental Ensemble”, “Needlework - Chinese Women's Boudoir Art”, “Basic Skills of Body Movement for Young Male Role in Peking Opera”, “Game Planning”, “Segment Training for Acting”, “History of Chinese Opera”, “History of Foreign Theatre (Europe and the United States)”, “Introduction to Drama”, “Planning and Management of Drama Production”, “Teaching of Classic Plays (Female Role in Peking Opera)”, “Stylization of Chinese Opera” and “Animation Concept Design” etc, which have enriched the online learning menu for students. The construction of the "Classroom in the Air" online teaching network was completed covering all departments, all majors and all courses. According to statistics, nearly 1000 courses participated in the online teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The in-depth development of online teaching has brought many benefits in multiple aspects. The ideological and political education, which has been promoted successfully in STA in recent years, has also been an important part of this. Yang Qingqing, a teacher in the STA College of Creative Studies, has included a special component in her visual communication design course, i.e. making cultural and creative image design with the theme of "April Showers Brings May Flowers". In this special semester, the teachers and students of STA attended an enlarged online ideological and political class together. This class called "Make Butterfly Transformation in the Big Test of COVID-19 Pandemic, Shine in the Course of Struggle" was delivered by Xie Wei, Party Secretary of STA.

The online teaching has also brought about a new mode of teaching management and teaching supervision. The inspection groups, which are composed of all leadership members of the colleges and departments, supervised the teaching work of all majors with full coverage. They switched back and forth on Chaoxing, Corporate Wechat, Zoom, Meeting, China University MOOCS and other platforms, with greatly increased number and frequency of "walking" into the classrooms. Leaders of STA also "descended" to the frontline of teaching in an online way to directly understand the teaching situation, and some of them even discussed specific course related matters with teachers.

The super massive online teaching globally has set off a new education revolution. STA has embraced the revolution and gained the initiative increasingly.

On 13 June, the STA Experimental Theatre, which had been closed for 145 days due to the COVID-19 prevention and control, finally declared its "return" on this day. The first play for public performance after the re-opening was "Nurse’s Diary", the large-scale original drama on fighting COVID-19. The play was written by Professor Lu Jun of STA’s Theatrical Literature Department and his graduate student Yuan Hexiang, and directed by Yi Tianfu, dean of ST’s Stage Design Department who was also the stage designer of the play, and performed by teachers and students of STA’s Acting Department and Directing Department. This realistic work with the fight against COVID-19 as the background had gone from online to offline in more than three months since the crew was set up online in early March. Representatives of medical workers in Shanghai, who had made outstanding contributions in the battle of COVID-19 prevention and control, became its first audience. Zhang Wenhong, head of the Shanghai COVID-19 Medical Treatment Expert Group, said after watching the play: "Highly beneficial, very good! Salute the actors!”

In the face of this major public health emergency, STAers cannot go to the front line to rescue the wounded and the dying, but literary and art workers have always held high the banner of human spirit and belief in crises. On 1 February, the official Wechat account of STA released the original poem recitation “The Chinese New Year of 2020” recorded remotely by Wang Su and three other teachers of STA, which officially launched STA’s campaign of fighting COVID-19 with art, thus becoming a landscape during the extraordinary period.

Fighting COVID-19 with art is an important way for teachers, students and alumni of STA to participate in the battle of COVID-19 prevention and control. It fully shows the specialized characteristics of art colleges and universities, and highlights the mission and responsibility of socialist literature and art. More than 200 works on the theme of fighting COVID-19, covering a variety of art fields such as drama, recitation, radio drama, Chinese opera, puppet, fine arts, animation, music, cultural and creative arts. It can be called a large-scale, all-round and multi-disciplinary total mobilization and major training a high degree of integration of major professional education and ideological and political education carried out by STA which is a comprehensive art university with performing arts as its core. The teachers and students from the STA College of Film and Television who participated in the production of the radio drama "Target! Wuhan" said that looking back on this period of time in 10 years' time, the feelings will be more distinct and profound, and the pandemic will be gone eventually, and we will never stop on our way forward.

The 2020 STA Art Season, which should have been presented to the audience in the spring, opened on 6 July. In the form of 2020 Special Edition, 16 performances and exhibitions were launched continuously through online platforms, including graduation works of Year 2016 undergraduate classes from the Acting Department (including the Musical Center), the Directing Department, the Stage Design Department, the Dance College, the Chinese Opera College, the Film and Television College, and the Creative Studies College.

Since the normalization of COVID-19 prevention and control, STA has rapidly restarted a number of fields regarded as bellwethers. Besides performances, the most concerned ones are academic discussion and international exchange.

On 30 and 31 May, sponsored by the Shanghai Education Talent Exchange Service Center and the Shanghai University Talent Work Alliance, and hosted by the Shanghai Theatre Academy, the “Shanghai University League’s Forum for International Young Scholars – Forum of Theatre, Film and TV” was successfully held by way of setting up the main venue in the New Experimental Space Theatre of Shanghai Theatre Academy and more than 100 participants from all over the world conducting the discussions online. Tobias Biancone, Director-General of UNESCO-International Theatre Institute, took part in the whole forum through the Internet and delivered a speech. “Wenhui Daily” and “China Culture Daily” respectively reported the main viewpoints of Chinese and foreign guests in full page length. This was the first large-scale, online and offline integrated international conference held by STA, which organically integrated the "onsite" of performing arts with the "online" of the Internet era. "Future-oriented Theatre, Film and TV Education" was the theme of this sub-forum for theatre, film and television. It not only highlighted the changes in the concept and mode of global theatre, film and television education in the post COVID-19 era, but also served as an important declaration of STA’s commitment to "inherit and innovate, integrate China and the West", and to realize inheritance and development. The restart of international professional academic activities shows precisely this determination and attitude.

Change is the only thing that does not change in today's era that is full of uncertainty. When the term "Post COVID-19 Era" gradually surfaced, various disciplines and majors in STA began to actively consider and explore the impact of the post COVID-19 era, and how to face the impact. Since May, STA has hosted or co-hosted a number of academic and professional seminars focusing on the post COVID-19 era via online platforms, such as the "High Level Forum on the Development of Art and Art Management in the Post COVID-19 Era" and the "Seminar on the Construction of Theatre, Film and Television Disciplines and Majors in the Post COVID-19 Era", which invited experts and scholars from relevant universities and art institutions across the country to bring collision of thoughts and ideas. COVID-19 cannot stop the actors from thinking about the future. In the face of an era full of variables, STAers are responsible and prepared.