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Ms. Tran Thuy Tien (47 years old, HCMC) said that she has not missed any "Once Upon a Time" program in the past 23 years. Indeed, "Once Upon a Time" has many audiences of all ages who love and are passionately fascinated by it...
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| "Once Upon a Time" program number 33 The Adventures of Captain Sinbad - The Great Mermaid War won with 55 performances |
After more than 10 years of promoting the activities of the Nu Cuoi puppetry troupe (founded on the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1983), director Huynh Anh Tuan was always concerned that the stage was regularly lit up for adults, but there was no professional stage regularly performing for children.
From that concern, together with his colleagues, director Huynh Anh Tuan launched the first professional children's theater on August 10, 1997, with the play The Pig Herding Prince (author and director: Doan Khoa), with the participation of artists Thanh Loc, Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc and the cast of the Nu Cuoi puppetry troupe such as: Dinh Toan, Hoang Trinh, Vu Minh, Minh Nhi..., performing regularly on weekends. After the opening play, the plays An Khe Tra Vang, Ngu Ong and Tien Me... attracted the attention of the audience.
With the desire to create a more spectacular and unique children's stage for young audiences to "see with their eyes", director Huynh Anh Tuan continued to "take a risk" with his crew to bring the children's drama program at Idecaf stage (more than 300 seats) to Ben Thanh Theater (more than 1,000 seats), investing in staging and grandly launching the first episode of the program Once Upon a Time in June 2000, with the play Tam Cam.
The play ran for 15 consecutive performances, creating a miracle for the children's drama stage at that time. By the summer of 2023, Once Upon a Time No. 34 The Princess and the Hemp Dress was being staged and rehearsed enthusiastically by the crew, preparing for the first performance on May 27.
When starting to make the show Once Upon a Time , the production team wanted to use dramatic stories with a folk, fantasy, and funny feel, close to the innocent world of children.
“However, when working, we are always most concerned about the script, because making children's plays is much more difficult than adult plays. The performing artists also have to exert more energy. For children, every sentence, situation, and action must be very educational when performed on stage. From the initial difficulties, the crew gradually sought solutions and got the answer: children really need colorful, cheerful, attractive stage works, engaging stories, constant innovation, good interaction between performing artists and young audiences and even parents,” director Huynh Anh Tuan concluded.
There were years when the Ho Chi Minh City drama scene had many difficulties in finding and retaining audiences. The producer had to spend hundreds of millions of dong to invest in advertising, arrange staff to distribute flyers in schools, "dress up" the theater space into a beautiful and eye-catching aquarium, the first part of the program was 15 minutes of singing and dancing, organizing games with prizes, to create an atmosphere before performing the play. On the contrary, Once Upon a Time has become a solid brand in the hearts of the city's audience because of the quality, spread and messages that the programs bring.
Director Huynh Anh Tuan said: “The program’s brand has been built for decades, so we will try to maintain and organize it, because it is the right of the audience and also the right of the performers. We will strive to preserve the tradition, and the artists will work together to continuously and consistently implement this program that is very educational for children. Through each program, we always demand of ourselves how to make the quality of the next program more difficult, better, more novel, and more attractive than the previous program, to best meet the needs of the audience. That is also a necessary criterion for building a stage brand.”
Once Upon a Time No. 34 The Princess and the Hemp Dress (a play inspired by the work The Swans by author Quang Thao, directed by Dinh Toan) has just opened ticket sales for 23 shows from May 27 to June 25 and all tickets have been sold out. The play features Meritorious Artists Thanh Loc, Huu Chau, My Duyen; artists Thanh Thuy, Bach Long, Hoang Trinh, Le Khanh, Huong Giang, Dinh Toan, Quang Thao, Tuan Khoi, Tuan Khai... Currently, the show schedule has been arranged for 20 more shows in July 2023. If all goes well, Once Upon a Time No. 34 will be scheduled to perform until the end of August 2023.
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