East West Theater's staging of Edward Albee's The Zoo Story and Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter will provide Shanghai with a double-dose of theater of theater of theater of theater of the absurd, to kick off their new performance season. more ›

Fans of musical theater adaptations of Shakespeare, you should be sitting down for this. Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate, which was to run from September 28th to October 3rd at the Shanghai Grand Stage, has been canceled! The show, put on by Sydney's Brave Touch Productions, recently fared rather poorly during its Beijing run, and all shows in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been shuttered as a result. Only 25 percent of tickets in Beijing had been sold, while Shanghai fared little better, with only a third of available tickets sold as of yesterday. Full ticket refunds can be redeemed at the Shanghai Grand Stage from 6pm to 8pm beginning tomorrow, or from 10am to 5:30pm at any ticket agency where the original ticket was purchased. Though some sources claim the last day for claiming ticket refunds is October 10th, we'd recommend getting them before October 3rd, just to be safe. For refunds, you can call either (21) 61204560, or (21) 61326581. more ›

All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: Yoga superstar master Duncan Wong is in town, catch an arty lecture at Sasha's, a special project at Bridge 8, or one of most well known Chinese plays, 'Rhinoceros in Love' is on at the Shanghai Grand Theater! Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

Some of you, like us, may be feeling summer blockbuster withdrawals to the point where in your fevered, gasping delirium you may not have the fortitude to search out the dates of your salvation on your own. So just for you, here are the upcoming summer theater release dates for China: more ›

All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: free movies, a mind-bending play, an exhibit by Li Wei, and circus acrobats! Read on, or check out our calendar for more! more ›

Shanghai Repertory Theater premieres its staging of The Vagina Monologues tonight at the Ke Center for Contemporary Arts, a show which serves as the highlight of SRT's June Extravaganza. We caught a dress rehearsal last night, and can report with confidence that several performers managed to transmit the full power of the original text penned by Eve Ensler. more ›

The Shanghai International Film Festival returns in its 14th incarnation this weekend! From June 11th-19th, over two hundred films (including "seven film noir classics") will be shown in 24 theaters across the city. more ›

The 24-hour theater experiment put on by H.A.L. Publishing and Shanghai Repertory Theater at the Ke Center for Contemporary Arts was a grinding test of endurance, with a variety of results on the evening. more ›

Who says there's no organic grassroots cultural movement in Shanghai? The Shanghai Repertory Theater is presenting a weeklong festival of theater performances, featuring a choice selection of original works and established classics. more ›

Serving as the kick-off event for Shanghai Repertory Theater's June Extravaganza, Friday night's Creative Collaborators Competition began as an easygoing play-reading affair, and ended as a rollicking standing-room only theater party. more ›

All the things you'd want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the schedule this week: Staatskapelle Dresden, the world's oldest orchestra from Germany, is performing at the Oriental Art Center. Pecha Kucha's holding volume 16 of their quickie design talks while Haiku is set on turning you into a sake master. Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

Start off your St. Patrick's eve the right way -- with Irish play, The Cure by Conal Creedon . It's premiering tonight and is brought to you by Irishtown Productions in association with Le Ceile and the Shanghai Repertory Theatre. The Cure is inspired by the ancient Celtic bardic style of story-telling but with a narrative that is contemporary and cutting edge. Set during the height of the Celtic Tiger economic boom in Ireland - The Cure tells the bittersweet tale of a man who has emotionally lost his way. Brushed aside by the insanity of a booming economy, cut adrift from the city where he and his family have lived for generations. more ›

Hey Shanghai, can you feel that? Like the weight of a million people has been lifted from your shoulders? As if suddenly you've been freed from a wearisome and oppressive burden? EXPO is finally over! If you're looking to get out of the house and celebrate, here's a list of things you might want to do this Monday through Thursday. On the docket this week: Lao Hu (Tiger Woods) is back in town for the HSBC golf thingy, The Woman in Black is running until Sunday, and Dambisa Moyo speaks about aid in Africa. Read on (or check out our calendar) for more! more ›

As an early-in-the-week edition of our ongoing Threesday feature, Shanghaiist takes the time to count out three of....well, whatever catches our fancy that week. And what we're hankering after are tickets to these top-notch productions onstage, one of which has its final show tonight! more ›

Amidst a hubbub of networking at Drift's launch party on Saturday at Abbey Road, we caught up with Shanghai Repertory Theater's producer, Rosita Janbakhsh, to talk about their new production Drift. The play makes its English-language world premiere at Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center from September 7th to September 12th. more ›

Tomorrow brings us East West Theatre’s twelfth production to date with The Shape of Things, written by Neil LaBute. The story centers around four angsty students from some Midwest college, all getting in each others business (read: pants), and leading to some drastic outcomes - a tale we're sure some of us will find hits a little close to home. more ›

It's been a while since we've seen A Christmas Carol, and we tend to forget exactly why we're so drawn to it. To put it lightly, Shanghai Repertory Theater reminded us in spades with an overwhelmingly heartwarming rendition. It was like Dickens on overdrive: Scrooge was crotchety, Bob Cratchit was an exemplar of optimistic vivacity, and little Tiny Tim charmed our socks off with unfeigned innocence. In the course of a short hour and a half, we forgot the cultural importance of the play, and entered into the virtues and vices of mankind, something that Dickens was aiming for long before his play became the centerpiece of the Christmas canon. more ›

• No worries about getting the runs while exploring the World Expo - Shanghai has been making extensive efforts to ensure that we are never far from a toilet. The city has installed toilets about every 200 meters for the estimated 400,000 daily visitors expected each day. In addition, sophisticated rubbish collection systems will help us to forget we're in a Chinese city. [Shanghai Daily]
• Looking for something culturally stimulating this week? The Tony award winning Soul of Shaolin tells the story of Hui Guang, a son and his mother. The show is a stunning display of Wushu Kung Fu that is sure to astound you. The performance starts this Thursday at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. [Smart Shanghai]
• China is planning on forming an organization of top universities called the C9 and Shanghai's very own Fudan University and Shanghai JiaoTong University will join with other prestigious schools across the nation in a Chinese "Ivy League". We wonder if they're copying this tradition for better education opportunities for their students or to increase elitism? [People's Daily]

Luma, a touring light spectacle, is wrapping up its China tour with a visit to Shanghai's Oriental Art Center this weekend. Dance, juggling and theatrics mingle with lighting effects in this show designed by artistic director Marlin, who conceived of the show two decades ago while watching a volcano's glow illuminate the horizon from his (then) treehouse residence in Hawaii. more ›

Photos and text by Jeremy Breningstall Ever wonder what the story of Oedipus would be like if it were told through the language of Beijing Opera? These photos offer a glimpse of that as well as Humans in the Year 2222, a Vietnamese drama. Both are among the many performances happening as part of the 2009 UNESCO Chair ITI Asian Pacific Expo of Theatre Schools & 5th Shanghai International Experimental Theatre Festival is taking place this week at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and other venues across town. This festival brings thespians from across the Pacific region for a range of workshops and performances. more ›

Eve Ensler's celebrated play—The Vagina Monologues —is coming to Shanghai. First produced in 1996 and first performed on off-Broadway's Westside Theater and London's West End, the play went on to become a global phenomenon. Each monologue is one woman's story, relating the vagina to sex, love, rape, menstruation, birth and other themes and issues in her life. Translated into at least 45 languages and staged in 120 countries to date, the play is performed as a benefit production around the world as a way to raise money for V-Day, an organization and movement that Ensler founded to help end violence against women. more ›

Sick of hearing about how absolutely awesome JJ Abram's Star Trek is from your friends in the States?Isn't it frustrating, considering it's one of those movies that actually would be better seen in theaters and who knows how long it'll take for a decent copy to be released on DVD here, right? Not really! Turns out we only need to wait one more week before basking in our nerddom, because the movie is boldly going where.... okay, where several big releases have gone before. According to IMDB, the set release date for Star Trek (星际迷航) in China is May 15. Be sure to live long and prosper til then! more ›

We don't know what prompted a bunch of people to reenact the seminal video game, Super Mario Bro.s, but we're glad they did. Live Mario runs through pipes, snags a mushroom to grow bigger, hits a star to become invincible and jumps for the flag. The only thing missing: someone from the Mushroom Kingdom to tell him "Thank you Mario, but our Princess is in another castle." more ›