How China’s Musicals Lost Their Groove

The Theatre Times: Where are all the Chinese musicals? This question isn’t as low stakes as it may seem. China has a long history of musical theater, from lyric ci poetry to the mixed musical stylings of Yuan Dynasty drama, to say nothing of various regional operas. As China developed economically, melding these traditions with the business models and production techniques of Broadway or the West End should have been relatively straightforward. At least, that was the idea when the Shanghai Conservatory of Music added a musical theater department in 2002.