Chorus of Approval

On February 14, Lin saw the premiere of the original Chinese musical The Longest Day in Chang’an at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in downtown Beijing. The next day, she traveled 30 kilometers to the Beijing Performing Arts Center in the city’s Tongzhou District to catch the West End production of Singin’ in the Rain. “I had to go. It was the only stop in China for Singin’ in the Rain,” she told NewsChina.　

Modern musical theater originated in the US in the late 19th century and entered its golden age on Broadway and London’s West End between the 1920s and 1950s. In China musicals were long seen as foreign, highbrow and inaccessible, far removed from everyday cultural life.　

That perception has shifted dramatically. In the past five years, China has seen a surge in musical theater, embraced by a growing and diverse audience. The country even has its own musical capital: Shanghai.　

According to the 2024 Annual Report of China’s Musical Market, jointly released by the China Association of Performing Arts and ticketing platform Taopiaopiao, over 13,600 musical performances were staged between January and October 2024, attracting more than 5.82 million audience members. Total revenue reached 1.4 billion yuan (US$192.5m), with Shanghai alone accounting for 56 percent.　

Lin is already planning a trip to Shanghai this November. From November 4 to December 28, Les Misérables will return to China for another run at the Shanghai Grand Theater. The classic West End musical, which first came to China in 2002, planted the seed that helped the genre take root. Now, 23 years later, that seed has blossomed into a thriving musical landscape.

But 24 years ago, when Fei was a graduate student of musicology at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he never imagined that China’s musical theater market would grow to what it is today.　

In 2001, he was commissioned by the Shanghai Grand Theater to translate Les Misérables into Chinese.　

“I had already translated several plays during college, and I was a huge fan of Les Misérables, so I was thrilled by the invitation and accepted immediately,” Fei told NewsChina. He recalled riding his bicycle to the theater to receive the assignment, singing songs from the musical in exhilaration all the way home.　

When Les Misérables debuted at the Shanghai Grand Theater in June 2002, it was the first Western musical to be staged in China.　

At first, attendance was low. The debut show was only 30 percent full. But word-of-mouth quickly spread, and the rest of the 21-show run sold out. Fei remembers scalpers charging up to 2,500 yuan (US$345) for tickets originally priced at 500 yuan (US$69).　

The 2002 production was nearly identical to the West End version. According to Qian Shijin, then artistic director of the Shanghai Grand Theater, the show’s massive sets, props, costumes and lighting equipment were flown from the UK on a Boeing 747. Among them was a 10-meter, 4,500-kilogram rotating turntable that brought the stage to life.　

In the emotionally charged “Do You Hear the People Sing” scene, the rotating stage transported Shanghai audiences to the blood and fire of 1820s Paris. The production broke records as the highest-grossing theater show in China at the time and, for the first time, opened the door to Western musicals for the Chinese public.　

Fei manually typed out the subtitles during each performance. “Captions for live theater were always entered manually,” he said. “I sat in a dark corner, typing line by line, and felt I was witnessing a truly historic moment for musicals in China.”　

Les Misérables was followed by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats in 2003, which ran for 42 shows, and The Phantom of the Opera in 2004, which achieved an even greater milestone with 100 performances. These classic productions not only expanded the cultural horizons of Chinese audiences but also helped jumpstart the country’s musical theater industry.

Japan crossed that threshold in 1983, the same year its adaptation of Cats debuted. South Korea followed in 1994, and its musical theater sector has flourished ever since, producing both Korean versions of Western musicals and original homegrown works.　

Shanghai and Beijing reached that benchmark in 2008 and 2009. In the years that followed, China began staging Chinese adaptations of foreign musicals and developing its own original productions.　

A pivotal moment came in 2011 with the founding of United Asia Live Entertainment (UALE), later dubbed “the cradle of Chinese musicals.” The joint venture brought together South Korea’s CJ ENM, China Arts and Entertainment Group and Shanghai Media Group.　

That year, UALE launched Chinese-language versions of two classic musicals: Cats and Mamma Mia!, the jukebox musical based on the hits of Swedish pop group ABBA. The Chinese Mamma Mia! was a smash: From 2011 to 2014, it toured 24 cities across the country, was performed over 400 times, and attracted more than 600,000 theatergoers. Many musical fans see 2011 as the official dawn of the Chinese musical theater industry.　

“There’s something called a ‘bible’ in theater production,” said Guo Yueting, a veteran producer who joined UALE in 2012. “It’s a detailed manual that lays out the exact steps for staging a show. Once we acquire the performance rights, we get the bible from the copyright owner.”　

These production bibles, which lay out everything from set design and lighting to costumes, acting, touring logistics and company management, offered guidance for a whole generation of Chinese producers, directors and performers.　

Since then, a range of Chinese-language adaptations of well-known musicals have been staged, including Man of La Mancha, Next to Normal, The Sound of Music, Matilda, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Musicals originally written in other languages have also been adapted into Chinese, including French productions like Roméo et Juliette and Mozart, l’opéra rock, the Russian musical Anna Karenina, and Korean shows like Fan Letter, Mia Famiglia and Mio Fratello.　

“The tour runs of overseas productions in China are typically very short. They can reach existing fans, but they don’t have the impact to grow the market,” said Yuan Qi, deputy general manager at the Shanghai-based production company Focustage.　

“But Chinese-language adaptations performed by local actors can tour for much longer. They build a stronger, more loyal fanbase that comes back again and again. That’s how a mature market forms,” Yuan said.

It was the first time a Chinese reality show had brought musicals into the national spotlight. Contestants performed numbers from global hit shows including “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables, “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha, “Think of Me” from The Phantom of the Opera and “Les Rois du Monde” from the French musical Roméo et Juliette.　

For many Chinese viewers, this was their first exposure not just to Broadway and West End hits, but to musicals from France, Germany, Austria, South Korea and even China. While the show revealed only a glimpse of the musical theater world, it dramatically expanded the genre’s reach.　

“Between 2012, when I joined the industry, and 2018, the market was growing steadily,” Yuan Qi told NewsChina. “But 2018 marked a real turning point. That show changed everything.”　

Several Super-Vocal contestants went on to become stars, drawing huge new audiences to the theater. Among the most popular are Ayunga and Zheng Yunlong. After the show aired, any production they joined quickly became a hot ticket.　

In 2019, Zheng Yunlong starred in The Letter, a suspense musical adapted from a novel by Japanese bestseller Higashino Keigo. Thanks to Zheng’s popularity, tickets sold out in just one minute. On January 17, 2019, Zheng posted on Weibo: “I’ve waited 10 years for this one minute.”　

Fueled by star power, a flood of new audiences entered China’s theaters. The musical industry entered a period of rapid growth.　

According to the Shanghai Performance Trade Association, 752 musicals were staged in Shanghai in 2019, up 41.1 percent year-on-year. Audiences totaled more than 720,000, a 48.4 percent increase. That year, musical theater generated over 140 million yuan (US$19.2m) in revenue, more than any other live performance genre, including drama, dance and traditional opera.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of this policy is the Asia Building, a 21-story commercial tower located at People’s Square in the heart of Shanghai. Since 2019, the building has transformed from a typical office space into a key hub for China’s small theater scene.　

Nicknamed “Vertical Broadway,” the Asia Building now houses 22 “star spaces,” each seating around 100 people. On any given night, musicals and plays run simultaneously in these venues, attracting over 2,000 audience members.　

The most iconic production staged in the Asia Building is Mia Famiglia, a Chinese adaptation of a South Korean musical. Fans affectionately call it “Little Bar” due to its immersive staging – the entire set is a long bar where the audience sits, drinks and becomes part of the show. The result is a uniquely interactive experience that keeps fans coming back, some dozens of times.　

Beyond repurposed commercial buildings, pop-up theaters have emerged in cafés, bookstores, teahouses, former factories and public squares. Since 2019, more than 100 new performance spaces have opened in Shanghai, collectively staging nearly 800 shows each month.　

These venues have reshaped the domestic musical landscape. According to the 2024 Annual Report of China’s Musical Market, five of the top 10 highest-grossing Chinese musicals in the first 10 months of the year – Link Click, Doctor, #0528, Sonata of a Flame and Mia Famiglia – were all staged in Shanghai’s new performance spaces. All of the top 10 most frequently performed musicals were also produced and staged in these innovative venues.　

Inspired by Shanghai’s success, other cities have begun adopting the “Shanghai model.” In cities like Guangzhou and Chengdu, busy pedestrian streets have become strongholds for small theaters. Guangzhou’s Beijing Road and Chengdu’s Chunxi Road are now home to fixed theater spaces where smaller productions are staged regularly.　

“In grand theaters [in China], there’s no such thing as a Broadway-style musical that can run continuously for 20 years,” Yuan Qi told NewsChina. “Every production is scheduled for a limited run. Now imagine the cost of building a set for each show, dismantling it and transporting everything to the next location. If a show can’t be stationed in a permanent space, no matter how good it is, it’s just a ‘traveling show,’” he said.　

Yuan’s company, Focustage, has been a major player in the small-theater scene, producing popular shows like Mia Famiglia, Mio Fratello, Supernova and Run for Your Wife in the Asia Building. As of now, Mia Famiglia has been performed over 1,200 times. Yuan believes that the city’s “new performance space” policy has resolved the longstanding issue of venue availability for small productions. In theory, he says, “as long as the building stands and audiences still want to see the show, it can run for decades.”　

In 2019, when Super-Vocal first thrust musicals into the mainstream, Fei Yuanhong told NewsChina, “You can’t call China’s musical market a blue ocean. It’s not even an ocean. It’s just a lake.”　

Today, China’s musical theater market is growing rapidly, but Fei has not changed his metaphor. “It’s still a lake,” he said. “But the lake is much bigger than it was in 2019. Compared to Broadway or the West End, or even Japan and South Korea, we’re still small. There’s a long way to go.”