A Pipe Dream
A Pipe Dream has already been showed in France 24 times and referred to as "the new national opera" by French media.
A special feature of this drama is that the audience can enjoy the smell of Huangliang rice (broomcorn millet), and after each show, members are provided with a bowl of Huangliang rice.
Director Huang Ying said the interactive drama comes from a well-known Chinese idiom, and the concept of telling a story within the period of cooking a meal is very important. Desire for food is a way of easing worries and "if the audience are able to feel released after such a meal, then we have reached the effect we want from our acting."
A Sentimental Piece for Four Actors
Part of the 2011 Lin Zhaohua Theatre Art Festival, this pantomime is performed by the Poland Montownia Theatre in Beijing People's Art Theatre. Performers use gestures, movements and music to present an absurd story about four nameless men - a rat-catcher, vagrant, adventurer and anonymous stranger. The play explores the eternal problem of self-transcendence. The Garden of Desire
Everything in the Garden by renowned American playwright Edward Ablee is adapted for the Chinese stage. Actress and new mother Hu Ke plays heroine Jerry who lives with husband Richard in a luxurious villa - yet they are troubled by lack of money. That is until Richard discovers Jerry has been turning highly lucrative tricks. His reaction sets the pair on a dramatic path where people must pay for their excessive desires.
"It's harder for poor people to remain ungreedy than for the wealthy to not be wanton," noted famous anchor Dong Lu after watching the drama.
Maiden's Dinner
Little marketing and a no-star cast shouldn't stand in the way of this new drama surprising audiences with a plot full of suspense, deep meaning and shocks. At the beginning, a mysterious girl invites three men - former idlers from Yuan mingyuan Painter's Village and Songzhuang Art District in lazier days - to a luxurious dinner, in order to find out which is her biological father.
But all resemblances to Mamma Mia! end here - this is more like Death and the Maiden's Dinner, as the players' and audiences' consciences and resolve are tested in a continuous series of puzzles and suspense.
