"Go to that bright place, go to the front illuminated by torches! Let's go to Yan'an!" On the evening of September 22, sonorous and powerful verses echoed in the Opera Hall of Shanghai Oriental Art Center. The first stop of the 2024 national tour of the drama "Toward Yan'an" will

"Go to that bright place, go to the front illuminated by torches! Let's go to Yan'an!" On the evening of September 22, sonorous and powerful verses echoed in the Opera Hall of Shanghai Oriental Art Center. The first stop of the 2024 national tour of the drama "Toward Yan'an" will return to the premiere venue, and then the four-month "Made by Dongyi·Red Tour Season" will begin.

In order to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Shanghai Oriental Art Center specially planned the "Made by Dongyi Red Tour Season" and launched two self-produced large-scale red dramas "The Righteous Way in the World is the Vicissitudes of Life" and "Toward Yan'an" on a national tour in red. The journey polishes the red cultural background contained in "Produced in Shanghai". From September to December this year, the "Made by Dongyi·Red Tour Season" will set off from Shanghai, the birthplace of the Communist Party of China, tracing the red footprints, passing on the red fire, and spreading the tour map across the land of China. It is planned to be in Huai'an, the "hometown of Zhou Enlai", and More than 30 performances were performed in 25 cities including the "Red Cradle" Ji'an, the "Holy Land of Revolution" Yan'an, the "Twenty-Seven Famous City" Zhengzhou, the "Hero City" Nanchang, the "Red Rock City" Chongqing, and the Macao Special Administrative Region.

The drama "Toward Yan'an" is produced by the Propaganda Department of the Pudong New Area Committee (District Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau), Shanghai Oriental Art Center Management Co., Ltd., Beijing Poly Theater Management Co., Ltd., and jointly produced by Liberation Daily. It is the "Glorious City" 2024 Shanghai The key project of the Red Culture Season is also the only drama project selected by the theater as the production body among the major literary and artistic creation funding projects of the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation this year. The play was also awarded the "Performance IP of the Year·Excellent Play of the Year" at the 2024 Weibo Cultural Night.

"Toward Yan'an" stills

The drama "Toward Yan'an" is adapted from the novel of the same name by the writer Hai Fei, who won the "People's Literature Award·Biennial Novel Award". The original author Hai Fei serves as the screenwriter and is directed by the national first-class director Li Bonan. The story is set in Shanghai after the Battle of Songhu in 1937. It tells the story of the protagonist Xiang Jinxi who, by mistake, performed a latent mission as a chef on the eve of his departure for Yan'an and stayed in the dangerous Shanghai. Although Xiang Jinxi could not leave Shanghai in his life, he finally arrived at "Yan'an" in his heart in a secret and great way. At the end of the play, he changed his name to "Xiang Yan'an", and the audience suddenly realized the multiple meanings contained in the title of this play.

"Toward Yan'an" premiered at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on May 27, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Shanghai, and later premiered at the National Center for the Performing Arts during the July 1st period. The first round of ten performances in Beijing and Shanghai not only achieved good box office results, but also attracted the attention of the industry with its innovative expression of the main theme.

Stills of "Towards Yan'an"

After the first round of performances, the Shanghai Oriental Art Center extensively solicited opinions and suggestions from audiences, experts, media and other parties to improve the viewing experience and upgrade it, and invited the Jiangsu Provincial Performing Arts Group Theater (Jiangsu People's Art Theater) participated in the tour as a joint performance unit. Director Li Bonan has high hopes for joining Jiangsu People's Art: "I am very passionate about the drama "Toward Yan'an" and I am very much looking forward to the unique style of this version of "To Yan'an" after young artists from Jiangsu People's Art join. "Shanghai Oriental Art Center will also work with Jiangsu People's Art to explore the linkage and sharing of performing arts resources in the Yangtze River Delta, and create new samples for the integration of culture and performance under the background of the Yangtze River Delta integration strategy.

This summer, the drama "Toward Yan'an" was reorganized in Nanjing and held closed rehearsals for dozens of days. Excellent actors such as Yu Mingze and Liang Xi from Jiangsu People's Art joined the first-round performance team of Liu Zhiyang , Xu Kaicheng , Li Chuanying , Han Xiuyi, and Wang Nanjun. Audiences who have watched the premiere version and the tour version said that the polished and upgraded drama "To Yan'an" has a more compact and concise plot, a more distinct and prominent theme, and a richer Shanghai-style style.

"Toward Yan'an" is re-released in mid-summer

Since the first Shanghai-style drama "Jin Family Garden" came out in 2019, Shanghai Oriental Art Center has produced 6 stage works, covering dramas, dance dramas, musicals and other diverse categories, cultivating "Oriental" "Art Made" is a production brand with the vision of "popular and popular". While insisting that the works conform to mainstream values ​​​​and convey truth, goodness and beauty, we hope that the works can withstand the test of the performing arts market in terms of artistry and appreciation, and bring the mainstream values ​​​​Effectively connect the delivery with the current market audience needs.

In recent years, from "buying programs" to "producing programs" and then "selling programs", Dongyi has sang a "trilogy" in mobilizing performing arts resources, focusing on program introduction and output, paying equal attention to production and operation, giving full play to the theater As a production entity, it has the advantage in project operation to avoid the embarrassing situation of some projects being "put in storage" after the premiere. In the "Made by Dongyi·Red Tour Season", the drama "The Righteous Way in the World Is Vicissitudes" adapted from the TV series of the same name will take over "Toward Yan'an" to launch its fourth round of national tour, and star casts such as Wang Jinsong are expected to return. The drama "The Righteous Way in the World Is Vicissitudes of Life" premiered on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Party in 2021 and has been performed 73 times in 48 cities across the country.