Xú Zhēng will become the director of the Shanghai Lanxin Grand Theatre and gather domestic comedy talents to build a platform.

On January 28th, Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group and director Xú Zhēng signed a strategic agreement to jointly establish the first comedy vertical industry chain company in China. In the future, Xú Zhēng will be the content "manager" of Shanghai Lanxin Grand Theater, and the two sides will use this theater as a fulcrum to open up the comedy industry online and offline.

At the press conference, the two sides revealed that Lanxin Grand Theater will reopen after the overhaul this year, and Xú Zhēng will choose excellent performance content for the theater, and will also use the theater as a platform to create comedy content. In the plan, he will build a "comedy troupe" together with Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group to gather domestic comedy creative talents for content incubation. At the same time, the Shanghai International Comedy Festival will be upgraded in an all-round way, and a China comedy award ceremony is also in the pipeline.

Poster of Shanghai International Comedy Festival

Wenguang Performing Arts and Xú Zhēng cooperated to build a comedy industry platform.

As the artistic director of the Shanghai International Comedy Festival and a member of the Shanghai Drama Art Center, Xú Zhēng has been continuously participating in Shanghai’s drama performing activities in recent years, although his works in the field of film and television have continued.

This time, we further deepened our cooperation with Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group. In Xú Zhēng’s view, "I think we have the same view".

Upgrading the Shanghai International Comedy Festival in an all-round way will be the first step of cooperation between the two sides. The Lanxin Grand Theater, which will return this year, will become the resident theater of the comedy festival and gradually become a comedy exclusive theater, and Xú Zhēng will become the content manager of this theater.

Regarding the positioning of the theater’s next program, Xú Zhēng said that he hoped that Lanxin would become a theater where all good comedy content could be gathered. He will select the classic plays of previous Shanghai International Comedy Festival, so that these good plays can "stay", and at the same time gather the star version of classic comedies, domestic original comedies, talk shows, body dramas and other comedy styles here. In addition, some minority categories such as music theater and mime will also perform in Lanxin in the future.

On the basis of the upgrade of comedy festival, another focus of cooperation between the two sides is the incubation and creation of original content. The two sides plan to build a "comedy troupe", create more performance opportunities for comedy newcomers through repertoire creation, and strive to attract more comedy stars back to the stage to create more star versions of classic comedies.

"Today’s release can also be seen as a recruitment. We welcome the comedy creation content and talents from all over the country to come to us. No matter what kind of performance you have, we hope you can take it to Lanxin. We also want to select the best actors, and you are welcome to come for an interview. We have no professional restrictions, and we welcome all the strengths. " Xú Zhēng said.

At the same time, a professional award and award ceremony of comedy category is also planned, which will become a great gathering of annual comedy works and a great gathering of domestic comedians in the future.

Xú Zhēng: It has always been my dream to have a theater and a troupe.

"When I was a child, I studied on Anfu Road, and I often went to the edge of the people’s art to watch the play. The light and shadow and temperature in the theater are the places where my dreams began. As a content producer, I still want to go back to the theater and return to the original place. "

Asked why he came back to Shanghai to manage a theater, Xú Zhēng repeatedly mentioned his feelings for the theater and the stage. He also said: "It has always been my dream to have a theater and a troupe. This time, I have the opportunity to manage the Lanxin Grand Theatre, which is something I am particularly looking forward to. I can not only gather content here, but also create on this platform and integrate good content resources."

As a Shanghainese who grew up in Anfu Road, Xú Zhēng’s artistic path started from the Shanghai Drama Art Center in Anfu Road. Since childhood, it has been inextricably linked with the theater, and Xú Zhēng has been active on the stage for many years. Over the years, Xú Zhēng’s film and television dramas have repeatedly become the benchmark of word-of-mouth box office, and he has also become a very appealing figure in the field of comedy creation in China, but he has never left the stage.

This time, the cooperation with Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group also gave Xu Zheng the opportunity to realize his ideas. "Offline, we can create a space for gathering good content. I can also create it myself, and at the same time, I can integrate good content resources. On the other hand, the epidemic has also made people realize that the live performance is irreplaceable, creating an upgrade opportunity for offline content and performing arts space, and at the same time giving birth to many online opportunities. We can also try to broadcast live and create variety shows and other forms to open up the online and offline comedy. "

Asked whether the focus of the future will be film or theater, Xú Zhēng said, "I may still want to gradually return to the field of stage play. I have been making movies for years, and I have many responsibilities, but in my opinion, the creation cost of movies is very high, it takes two or three years to make a work with all my strength, and it also requires very mature IP, and the risks are relatively high. Relatively speaking, I think the trial and error cost of stage play can be much smaller. We can make many attempts together. If it is a particularly mature and successful work, we can take it out and make a movie. "

Compared with movies, the audience of drama is obviously much smaller, but in Xú Zhēng’s view, this is not a problem at all: "Although the audience of the theater will be smaller than that of the movie, we can feel the reaction of every audience and the applause of everyone in the theater, which is more satisfying for the actors. Moreover, I now have more audience appeal because of making movies. I think I should introduce this appeal into the theater to let more audiences know the art category of drama. "

Over the years, because of a series of successful comedies, Xú Zhēng is also closely tied to the word "comedy". However, in his own view, his recent film creations are no longer pure comedies, but only light comedies. "I think comedy is a market-oriented and effective means, especially my own creation carries this gene, so there is no need to deliberately avoid it. And I like that my works have a sense of humor. Now returning to the theater field, I prefer to get my own comedy brand back. "

Xú Zhēng said that this release is actually the beginning of the gathering of comedy talents, and he hopes that the creators from all over the country can get together in the future. In this platform and team, he may be a director and actor, or he may be a producer of plays that contribute ideas, in order to create more local comedy content.

Xú Zhēng (right) is at the press conference.

Create a comedy complex with the concept of "comedy+"and expand the comedy industry

In Shanghai, comedy has rapidly developed into a new cultural industry representing young people. The birth of various comedy variety shows, talk shows and comedy original power has captured a large number of audience groups. The data shows that the audience of "Young Comedy" is mostly young people aged 18-29. Among them, 60% of the audience watched off-line comedy performances, and pursued more direct and three-dimensional sensory stimulation on the spot.

As a representative figure in the field of comedy, Xú Zhēng thinks that the reason why comedy is so popular is related to the great pressure of contemporary people. "But in fact, except for the funny content, the content that is easy to cry is very popular, and the younger generation of consumers especially like to pay for their emotions. The expression of humor is also easier to get the attention and welcome of the younger generation. "

It is precisely because of the popularity of comedy that the comedy industry has become another important performing arts industry direction of Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group besides the musical industry and the immersive performing arts industry.

Not long ago, the Drama Art Center under Wenguang Performing Arts Group announced the establishment of a brand-new comedy brand "Comedian Alliance". He Nian, director of drama and film and television drama, is the artistic director, also focusing on high-quality comedy content and making mature offline comedy works. With the cooperation and platform construction between Xú Zhēng and Wenguang Performing Arts Group in comedy industry, the "Comedian Alliance" will continue to exert its strength on this new platform and carry out more linkage in content creation.

Ma Chencheng, president of Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group, also said that this cooperation with Xú Zhēng will start with Lanxin, and link the surrounding formats with the concept of "comedy+"to create a comedy complex in Shanghai, which will be a major strategic direction of the group in the future.

Previously, on the road of building an urban performing arts complex, Wenguang Performing Arts Group had successfully explored the immersive drama Sleepless. In addition to the performance, the consumption matrix in the form of "1+N" such as hotels, alcohol, fast-moving consumer goods and lifestyle has been built one after another, which has promoted the prosperity of commercial facilities such as hotels, restaurants and bars around Shangyan Valley.

Next, Wenguang Performing Arts Group and Xú Zhēng will introduce more comedy content and its surroundings into the commercial space, extract more elements of trend comedy, and strive to build the commercial space into a gathering place for young people in Chengdu and a punch-in landmark for pure comedy. In addition, they will also try to link more brands with content, link more entertainment, social and consumption scenes, and create more ways to play urban renewal.