Built by Sid Grauman in 1927, the most famous motion picture palace in the world towers majestically above the 6900 block of Hollywood Boulevard. The Chinese Theatre's Forecourt of the Stars attracts more than two million visitors annually. Throughout its history and up to the present day, the theatre has served as a magnet to thousands of fans and tourists who flock to the site daily to view the flamboyant architecture and the historic cement squares in the theatre's forecourt. The footprints, handprints, and signatures of 176 of Hollywood's most famous celebrities have been placed here, plus those of three comedy teams, one group of quintuplets, two robots and a villainous sci-fi character, on ventriloqist's dummy, a radio character, and the world's best known duck.

The profound political, economic, and social changes in China in the second half of the twentieth century have produced a wealth of scholarship; less studied however is how cultural events, and theater reforms in particular, contributed to the dynamic landscape of contemporary Chinese society. Rethinking Chinese Socialist Theaters of Reform fills this gap by investigating the theories and practice of socialist theater and their effects on a diverse range of genres, including Western-style spoken drama, Chinese folk opera, dance drama, Shanghai opera, Beijing opera, and rural theater. Focusing on the 1950s and ’60s, when theater art occupied a prominent political and cultural role in Maoist China, this book examines the efforts to remake theater in a socialist image. It explores the unique dynamics between official discourse, local politics, performance practice, and audience reception that emerged under the pressures of highly politicized cultural reform as well as the off-stage, lived impact of rapid policy change on individuals and troupes obscured by the public record. This multidisciplinary collection by leading scholars covers a wide range of perspectives, geographical locations, specific research methods, genres of performance, and individual knowledge and experience. The richly diverse approach leads readers through a nuanced and complex cultural landscape as it contributes significantly to our understanding of a crucial period in the development of modern Chinese theater and performance.

This volume is the first concise introduction to the splendid variety of the Chinese theatrical tradition. It presents a rounded perspective on the development of Chinese theater by considering all of its major aspects—history and social context, performance, costume, makeup, actors, playwrights, and theaters—and by discussing all the major forms of Chinese theater, including the Beijing opera, which arose in the eighteenth century, and the spoken play, an entirely twentieth-century form. Its contributors are uniquely qualified to write about the Chinese theater. They have enjoyed an intimate relationship with their subject, both as academics and as theater workers, and they have combined a deep knowledge of Chinese theater with a high regard for its long tradition and continuing vitality. The book is intended for general as well as more specialized readers. Those with an interest in theater as a worldwide phenomenon and those wanting a new light on Chinese culture and society will find it equally useful. To those with a particular interest in Chinese theater, it will be a rich and important resource.

The 20th century was a dynamic period for the theatrical arts in China. Booming urban theatres, the interaction between commercial practice and theatre, dramas staged during the War of Resistance against Japan and a healthy dialogue between Western and Eastern theatres all contributed to the momentousness of this period. The four volumes of A History of Chinese Theatre in the 20th Century display the developmental trajectories of Chinese theatre over those 100 years. This volume deals with the development of Chinese theatre from 1949 to 2000, covering the fluctuations of 'drama reform', spectacles of the 'Cultural Revolution', and theatre in the immediate years before the opening up of the country. The author demonstrates how Chinese dramatic traditions endured and adapted in the face of modernity and how politics and art interacted. By combining academic rigour with a high degree of readability, this volume is both an essential guide for scholars and students in the history of the arts and general readers interested in Chinese theatre.

The 20th century was a dynamic period for the theatrical arts in China. The four volumes of A History of Chinese Theatre in the 20th Century display the developmental trajectories of Chinese theatre over those hundred years. This volume examines the development of Chinese theatrical art from the Cultural Revolution to the end of the 20th century. The Cultural Revolution had a devastating influence on the theatrical profession, reducing the creation of performance art to serving the political authorities. Adopting a critical view, the author argues that the Reform and Opening-up of the late 1970s not only ended this period of political interference, but also brought about chaos and doubts to the theatrical circle, since neither tradition nor western concepts were a panacea for the problems faced by Chinese theatre. He posits that people should advocate patterns of drama that are rich and colourful in their expression while encouraging the coexistence and competition of different artistic concepts. Scholars and students in the history of the arts, especially the history of Chinese theatre, will find this book to be an essential guide.

This book examines the development of Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) in China through the angle of Chinese Theatre, xiqu. It focuses on the political and socio-economic transition period at the turn of the 21st century, as China evolves from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China’, highlighting associated class reconstruction and cultural production and consumption. There are many forms of Chinese Theatre, the most popular one throughout Chinese history to date is the sing-song drama, collectively refers to as xiqu, which currently has over 300 regional styles across China. In 2014, President Xi Jinping’s Beijing Talk on Arts and Literature, which serves as China’s latest Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideological direction and cultural policy, stressed that ‘the future of Chinese cultural and creative industries is to be anchored on traditional art forms, such as xiqu’. Such Chinese cultural and creative industry distinction will be addressed in this book.

Chinese theatre underwent a great experiment under the cultural revolution. Using the reformed Beijing operas as models, the whole range of theatre arts, from straight plays to acrobatics and from ballet to ballads saw a profound transformation. Alongside the professional theatre, an upsurge of workers’ and peasants’ amateur theatre stimulated new developments. This book, first published in 1978, sketches the historical background to these changes and offers a factual survey of the main forms and characteristics of Chinese theatre at the time. It traces the rise of the new drama since 1949 and explores the political principles underlying the reforms. It examines the new amateur theatre and describes typical plays and operas staged in China.

A reclusive painter living in exile in Paris, Gao Xingjian found himself instantly famous when he became the first Chinese language writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (2000). The author of the novel Soul Mountain, Gao is best known in his native country not as a visual artist or novelist, but as a playwright and theater director. This important yet rarely studied figure is the focus of Sy Ren Quah’s rich account appraising his contributions to contemporary Chinese and World Theater over the past two decades. A playwright himself, Quah provides an in-depth analysis of the literary, dramatic, intellectual, and technical aspects of Gao’s plays and theatrical concepts, treating Gao’s theater not only as an art form but, with Gao himself, as a significant cultural phenomenon. The Bus Stop, Wild Man, and other early works are examined in the context of 1980s China. Influenced by Stanislavsky, Brecht, and Beckett, as well as traditional Chinese theater arts and philosophies, Gao refused to conform to the dominant realist conventions of the time and made a conscious effort to renovate Chinese theater. The young playwright sought to create a "Modern Eastern Theater" that was neither a vague generalization nor a nationalistic declaration, but a challenge to orthodox ideologies. After fleeing China, Gao was free to experiment openly with theatrical forms. Quah examines his post-exile plays in a context of performance theory and philosophical concerns, such as the real versus the unreal, and the Self versus the Other. The image conveyed of Gao is not of an activist but of an intellectual committed to maintaining his artistic independence who continues to voice his opinion on political matters.

This book traces the transformation of traditional Chinese theatre’s (xiqu) aesthetics during its encounters with Western drama and theatrical forms in both mainland China and Taiwan since 1978. Through analyzing both the text and performances of eight adapted plays from William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett, this book elaborates on significant changes taking place in playwriting, acting, scenography, and stage-audience relations stemming from intercultural appropriation. As exemplified by each chapter, during the intercultural dialogue of Chinese and foreign elements there exists one-sided dominance by either culture, fusion, and hybridity, which corresponds to the various facets of China’s pursuit of modernity between its traditional and Western influences.