The theater stage is dead?

This isn't the first time Once Upon a Time has gone viral. In 2022, program number 33 also sold out 13,000 tickets. Born in 2000, Once Upon a Time with a massive investment in the image, content value, and famous cast has become a children's theater brand loved by children and adults alike.

Each year, the play has performances in the summer, Christmas and Tet. Over the past 23 years, each play has served more than 30,000 audiences (average 30 performances/play).

Besides performing at Ben Thanh Theatre, Idecaf Drama Theater also produces publications such as picture books and DVDs for audiences who cannot watch live. Once Upon a Time has become a theater franchise that has been passed on for generations. This success is not achieved at every stage.

Theater reviewer Ngoc An stated: “There are four factors that make this brand so appealing to multi-generational audiences. The first is the painstaking and massive investment in the form to provide youngsters with a dazzling paradise. The material is intelligent, updated in real-time, and borrowed from the past. Fun provides amusement. The plays include honesty, beauty, and education. Third reason. Finally, artist excitement. They study children's psychology so that children and adults may identify with the characters in each play.

Ms. Ngoc An further emphasized that the above 4 factors were nurtured and developed from the vision of the boss Huynh Anh Tuan. From the early days of building the Once Upon a Time brand, Mr. Tuan has pursued the goal of building a young audience with a love for the stage. To do so, children's drama is the foundation. Many children in the past become parents and continue to bring their children to see the play, which is both a meaningful playground for children and relives childhood memories.

Director Dinh Toan, a member of the group Lieu Lo, said that whenever he had the opportunity, Mr. Tuan would take his brothers to see foreign plays, especially Broadway plays, to be inspired. “I know the conditions in Vietnam are difficult to do like them, but in each book, we try to apply one or two more parts from what we have learned and seen. That alone makes the play more lively and interesting," said director Dinh Toan.

Not only gradually building the next generation of audiences, but Mr. Tuan also trained a stable succession of actors. After Thanh Loc, Huu Chau, Bach Long, Thanh Thuy... are Hoang Trinh, My Duyen, Dai Nghia, Dinh Toan, Duc Thinh, Le Khanh... They both complement and continue what generations of artists do. did it before. Thanks to that, the force of the stage's actors has always been stable for many years. The success of Once Upon a Time has helped Mr. Tuan raise plays on the adult theater stage. In addition, over the years, he used other business activities to maintain the stage.

The first factor that helps a stage to light up every night is the budget. Ms. Ngoc An emphasized that financial factors govern and decide everything. "Once you can't invest in scenery, images, context, sound, light... it's very difficult to attract audiences to see and it's also difficult to compete with other art forms," ​​she said.

The decline of stage 5B once marked with experimental drama is a typical example. In fact, on a bright night, the bosses and pregnant women have to spend 4-6 million VND for the venue rental, not including the expenses for sound, lighting, actors' remuneration, and many other things, although crowded or not. Regarding the script, according to Ms. Ngoc An, currently adult theater stages are lacking or absent from really quality, in-depth and close-to-life scripts. Idecaf's plays are seasonal, bringing in great revenue, but most of them are children's comedies, performed for 1 season, but it is difficult to make a second season but have to do a new work. “This can have an impact on persistence in creativity,” said Nguyen Minh Luan, a content creation specialist and a graduate of art management at Macquarie University (Australia).

Next are facilities and space, location. In order to create a play big enough to be played over and over again, pregnant men and women have to make large-scale plays. The larger the scale of the play, the more suitable space is needed to install a fixed stage for an entire show season. If the quality of the play is good, this is a win-win situation for both parties, because the stage will not be able to hold any other events or plays, and the aforementioned play will be the main source of the stage's revenue for the year. a long time. In Vietnam, the stage is often rented from the cultural house, the district children's house, so there must be compromises such as not being able to repair too much, and not being able to put too many props, and scenes...

“Because of limited human resources, it is difficult for theater stages to make breakthrough changes. Without change, it is easier to be left behind in the face of the digital explosion. Difficulty operating the stage makes the price of theater tickets cannot be reduced. It all creates an endless loop,” Mr. Luan shared.

Looking at the long-term view of the dramatic stage, the stage maker needs to seriously consider the stage as a business and must have the same corporate governance mindset as Mr. Tuan did. “If we talk about feeding the stage, we have to talk about it as a kind of art business. That is, the stage owner must have a vision, a strategy, and, of course, must be accompanied by a sense of moral and social responsibility, "said Mr. Luan.

“That is not to say that I ask directors or managers, pregnant women to completely change people in art to follow the market, but need to look for people who are similar and have high expertise. to map out the development direction of the stage. Thereby, the stage management will become specialized, with many departments built from solid bricks, not just operating on the box office, one or two social networking sites and relationships. existing relationship with the media”, Mr. Luan stated the core point.