Create a new entertainment experience that allows for listening, watching, eating, and playing. The Beijing children's drama "Hutong Yaya" trilogy will run continuously for 7 hours. Beijing Children's Art | Series | Trilogy

"My name is Yaya, and I have always lived in hutongs. The hutongs are so fun!" Accompanied by the innocent and childlike voice of the protagonist "Yaya", the Beijing Children's Art Theatre produced the Beijing Performing Arts Group and performed the Beijing style children's drama series "Mr. Mouse Rises Late", "The Flower Cat Three Ya Goes into the Room", and "The Earth Dog Old Black Causes Trouble". On July 28th, the Beijing Children's Art · Nanluo Theater challenged the online and offline "Three Drama Continuous Performance". The audience, big and small, and the creators on stage jointly experienced a nearly seven hour "Children's Drama Marathon".

During the over 300 minute performance, adults and children were attracted by the vivid character images, picturesque scenery, hand drawn multimedia, and expressive puppets on stage. As the plot progresses, the audience sometimes laughs heartily, sometimes gets lost in thought, and sometimes bursts into tears.

Creating the "ceiling" of Beijing style children's dramas

The protagonist of this Beijing style children's drama series is a quirky little girl named "Yaya" who grew up in a courtyard in a hutong in Beijing. She was born in the Year of the Rat and is nicknamed "Mouse Yaya". Yaya has eloquence, opinions, and some Beijing people are generous. Her childhood is colorful, innocent, and full of vitality. Yaya befriends the Mouse Grandpa, accompanies the Flower Cat Sanya, grows up with the local dog Lao Hei through ups and downs, and realizes the mysteries of life through the passage of time with her family and friends.

The "Hutong Yaya" trilogy of growth is adapted from the children's literature work of the same name by the famous Beijing style writer Ye Guangqin. It vividly tells the innocent, youthful, and beautiful childhood stories of a Beijing girl Yaya in the 1950s, and showcases the unique customs and traditions of Beijing to the audience. This series of works was jointly included in the creative topic of Beijing Children's Art by Beijing Performing Arts Group and Beijing Publishing Group in 2020, and was presented to the audience from 2021 to 2023. It has performed nearly a hundred times and has been praised by the media, experts, and audiences as a "ceiling level" children's drama.

In the past three years, under the direction of artistic production of "New Beijing Flavor and New Classics", Beijing Performing Arts Group has achieved fruitful results in exploring Beijing style children's dramas. The growth trilogy of "Yaya" moves from books to the stage, creating drama while maintaining literary quality, truly achieving a perfect integration from literature to drama, and receiving excellent word-of-mouth feedback and market response.

Dong Ning, Deputy General Manager of Beijing Performing Arts Group and Chairman of Beijing Children's Art, stated that this time, through the "Three Dramas in a Row" approach, the growth story of "Yaya" was fully narrated in stage art language, showcasing the unique cultural warmth of Beijing and creating a theater world full of "truth, goodness, and beauty" for children. "This is not only an innovation, but also a challenge, and a unique theatrical experience that the performing arts city should have. We hope to use these three works to create the 'Jingweier' children's drama brand, explore the spiritual core of 'Jingweier', and contribute to the cultural calling card of 'watching Beijing in big dramas'."

Exploring new expressions of stage aesthetics in children's dramas

All innovative attempts come with difficulties, which means challenges. The "Three Dramas in a Row" requires three different theatrical performances to be performed continuously on the same stage: from the grandeur of the Summer Palace in "Mr. Mouse Getting Up Late", to the fireworks in the alleyways in "The Flower Cat's Three Yas Going into the Room", and finally to the ladder of growth in "The Earth Dog Old Black Causing Trouble".

Wang Ze, the chief director of the "Hutong Yaya" growth trilogy series children's drama and the young director of Beijing Children's Art, introduced that the switching of scenery on stage is the most difficult part of the "three drama series". "Due to the limited stage area of the Nanluo Theater, after considering integration, we chose to use the stage beauty presentation of" The Dog Old Black Causing Trouble "as the basic stage, using the diagonal lines of the slope to form the long corridor of the Summer Palace and the layered alleys, which greatly changed the aesthetic perspective of the first two plays."

In the end, the creative team utilized all the suspension rods and platforms in the theater to design storage spaces for different props under each platform, making every piece of land fully utilized. Through the transition of stage scenery and changes in light and shadow during the short 30 minute halftime, the drama transition was completed, achieving a unified presentation of the overall stage style. "We hope to explore new expressions of the aesthetic art of the" Yaya "theatrical stage through this" Three Drama Performance "event." Wang Ze said.

Creating milestone children's drama performances

The children's attention span has an upper limit, so children's dramas usually do not exceed two hours of performance time, and the total duration of this "three drama series" activity is over 7 hours. In order to help children break through their attention limits and better participate in this theatrical carnival, the creative team added many interactive segments during the performance, allowing the audience of all sizes to enjoy a "new performing experience" of listening, watching, eating, and playing at the Nanluo Theater——

Every viewer who watches the "Yaya" trilogy can receive exclusive snacks for "Yaya" with their performance ticket stubs. During the intermission of the performance, the audience can also participate in theme activities such as "theatrical costumes", "playing in hutongs", and "storytelling". In the "interactive corner" outside the theater, there are exhibitions of knowledge about "Nine Dragons Born" from "Mr. Mouse Rises Late" and exquisite comic strips from "Flower Cat Three Ya Goes into the Room". There are also paintings, reflections, and handwritten letters created by children with the theme of the "Yaya" series of children's dramas, showcasing their wisdom and beauty in fairy tales and language.

A parent who accompanied their child to watch a drama told the reporter, "I hope there will be more performance activities that can both be played and learned."

"Every children's drama carries the thoughts and highlights of three generations. A good children's drama is meant to tell children 'what the world should be like.' For the past three years, we have been with 'Yaya', always with this warm Beijing story. In the future, Beijing Children's Art will create more high-quality children's dramas that tell the story of Beijing, allowing more children and parents to enter the Beijing Children's Art Nanluo Theater and contribute to the construction of the Beijing Performing Arts City." said Wang Dong, Dean of Beijing Children's Art.

After the "Three Dramas" series, the "Hutong Yaya" growth trilogy will have more than 30 summer performances from July 29th to September 10th.