The Shanghai Repertory Theater (SRT) has been busy, busy, busy since coming together in October of last year, with successful and well-received productions of A Christmas Carol, King Lear, and La Cantatrice Chauve. This weekend they launch a full, ten-day festival of theater and dance called the Spring Arts Festival, which will see local dance and theater groups paired with Broadway-seasoned productions from Ireland, offering a mix of comedic diversion and heady edification by way of the fringe arts.

The Spring Arts Festival will be running from May 21-31, with all performances at the Ke Center.

Alas, last week, the Spring Arts Festival was compelled to excise one of their planned productions -- 5th Wall's Taste of Red -- when the culture bureau deemed the subject matter unsuitable for public performance.

The show must go on. The performance schedule has been reworked and will kick off this weekend as planned. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of this article to have a look at the line-up of productions.

***

Tickets are available for single shows or for a full festival pass. Pre-sale tickets are 150rmb and 180rmb at the door. ALL ACCESS PASSES are available for 400rmb; and at the door 500rmb.

Tickets Available: Online: www.ticket2010.com or at shanghai.repertory.info@gmail.com.

***

SmartShanghai sat down with SRT's producer Rosita Janbakhsh and Charlie Mayer of 5th Wall (whom you might actually recognize as Chinatown Charlie, MC to the stars of stage at Gosney and Kallman's Chinatown) to discuss the Spring Arts Festival, Taste of Red getting the axe, and the uphill battle to putting on theater in Shanghai.

***

Rosita: Sure, we started officially on Halloween of last year, so we're coming up on the one-year anniversary. We came together when I left East West Theater, wanting to go in a different direction, and the people who wanted to go in that direction came as well, and we found a lot of new people along the way.

So, artistically, we are all on the same page and looking at putting together plays that are strong enough to go abroad in international festivals -- professional theater. We did A Christmas Carol last year, and then followed that up with King Lear, and then we did La Cantatrice Chauve in French, and now our in-house production for the Spring Arts Festival is [Noël Coward's] Private Lives, which will premier at the festival.

Rosita: Well, I decided before Christmas Carol was off the ground which plays we were going to do in Spring, and we're already working on plays for after the festival -- which Shakespeare play to do next, and what the Fall season is going to look like. That's something I will be able to finalize in June. We want to do stuff that has 1) not been done in Shanghai before and 2) we feel is challenging enough to stretch our boundaries artistically. King Lear, for example, as one of the most difficult plays to stage, was a challenge in it of itself. But Shanghai is unique in that everything is a challenge and you don't have all the resources available to you, so you have to find other ways to do it.

But we spent the first third of the year on King Lear and emotionally came together, and as a team -- cast and crew -- it was probably the best team I've ever worked with in my life.

Charlie: Well, there's a whole bunch of people coming in from outside Shanghai. There are three productions that are Shanghai-based and a couple others that are coming from Ireland. So these guys are coming in from Cork and they've performed there and Dublin and Broadway, and they've done really well in New York. So they've come across here with a lot of backing and direction from the Irish Consulate. And they've found that it was a really good thing to leap into with us as opposed to making their own way and trying to figure out how to do it in Shanghai.

Rosita: This is their Asian premier and Culture Ireland is backing both the Irish productions, which are coming from two companies -- one in Cork and one in Dublin.

Charlie: One of the pieces is a contemporary dance type thing [Dialogue] -- very pure modern dance kind of thing. It's very good. And that was opposed to Taste of Red which was dance, theater, sound, and video, which I'm involved in.

We had done it earlier, something like six months ago at Creek Art, and then again at the River Art Center. But we'd worked on it since then for this festival, and it was going to be a hell of a lot bigger.

But then the Culture Bureau said 'no'.

Rosita: Yes, our contacts at the Ke Center were telling us that one of the main reasons was Expo, and the cracking down on things in general. And then maybe they feel like they are doing their jobs if they choose one play in the program and not allow it.

Charlie: And if they were going to touch one, then it would have been that one. But they said it's 'not good'.

Rosita: Since day one we have, yes. That was one of the big things we wanted to do was to be professional and legitimate -- steps to legitimacy and all that. And so since Christmas Carol we've been submitting our stuff and dotting the i's and crossing the t's. We're pushing the envelope in that we're an all-foreign group, but being recognized as legitimate was what we wanted to do. Like we're trying to bring it to another level, hopefully working with the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center.

Rosita: We've just reworked a few dates with the existing performances and the Monday night, people get to pay a little less.

Charlie: Well, I think what Jen [Jenevieve Chang, director] wants to do with Taste of Red is carry on doing it. It's getting to the point where we were just breaking through on communicating the four art forms together. So there is no way it's going to be dropped and there's been far too much gone into it. It's not being dropped as a project. And even now just looking at it -- like we know from Chinatown that to get approval its script, translation, video, still photographs, and then representatives come to the show to see it for themselves -- we might have to look elsewhere outside of China.

Rosita: In a way, yes and in a way, no. The people we have involved have, for the most part, set down roots here, so they're here longer. But we're loosing our technical director and lighting designer so we have to find a way to replace them...

Rosita: We don't have auditions for each production -- we're planning to have a sort of general overall audition is September looking forward to the fall. And then again at the beginning of Spring. And then if we need extra auditions in the middle periods we schedule them.

Charlie: I've seen that the mix of abilities in the actors is wide as apposed to a place like London, and you're dealing with a wide spread of people -- I can't speak for the directors themselves -- but the amount of patience and generosity that is shown in the festival actors actually makes for a much better working environment, I find, than the competitive nightmare of London, where everybody is a bitch and comparing careers with one another. Here, it's not about careers...

Rosita: It's about survival [Laughs.] We're all aware, more so now, that we can be shut down...

Charlie: And even the language of acting, people are open about it and generous. A lot of people here, with noble intentions, are bright and willing to give over their evenings to the thing...

Charlie: One of the more over-arching things with the festival, one of the main objectives, is getting people here in Shanghai used to the idea of going to see a play. And coming away from they play thinking that they benefited from it, rather then their presence there was of benefit to the theater company alone.

It's an upward curve. So the audience will be better, and be more trusting, and more open, and then we can put on more interesting shit. But this festival is all very solid and very worthwhile, and it fits perfectly into the curve of developing an audience.

Rosita: You asked before about overall aesthetic before, and one that we're trying out this year at SRT is having a different director for each production, and it's really forced the group to come together in a short amount of time to be professional. It's challenged us and forced us to adapt and raise our standard of production quality -- whether it's Shakespeare, whether it's an absurdist play -- to provide something worthwhile. As Charlie said, part of it is trying to train the audience to accept theater. When you first think of nightlife in Shanghai it's going clubbing or music, and theater is something that is really on the fringe. We're trying to change that.

It's small and tight-knit but it's growing...

All images with this article are from the promotional images accompanying the various performances. Thanks to SRT.

***

SRT's Spring Arts Festival Schedule

Festival Schedule: May 21-31.

All performances will be taking place at the Ke Center.

All performances start at 8pm, unless otherwise noted.

Dance Portion of the festival:

Friday May 21: Dialogue followed by performances from Shanghai's resident Capoeira group: Capoeira Mandinga Shanghai

Saturday May 22: One by Chaim Gebber followed by Dialogue(at 8pm)

Sunday May 23: daytime: Capoeira workshop (at 3pm)

Evening: One by Chaim Gebber followed by Capoeir Mandinga Shanghai (at 8pm)

Monday May 24: One by Chaim Gebber

special note: tickets are half-price tonight -- so 75rmb. Basically buy one ticket get one free at price of 150rmb or buy 2 tickets for price of one.

Theater Portion of the Festival:

Tuesday May 25: SRT's Private Lives

Wednesday May 26: SRT's Private Lives

Thursday May 27: Irish Plays: After Luke and When I Was God

Friday May 28: Irish Plays: After Luke and When I Was God

Saturday May 29: Irish Plays: After Luke and When I Was God (2 performances- one early show at 5:00pm and one late show at 8:00pm) with a special reading by playwright Conal Creedon before the first showing, reading begins at 4pm

Sunday May 30: afternoon matinee children's play Patchwork Girl of Oz presented by HeZuoYuan (acted by children for children)- free admission (at 1pm)

Evening: SRT's Private Lives (at 8pm)

Monday May 31: SRT's Private Lives