Beijing Oriental Broadway International (Oriental Broadway), the first joint venture company in the performing arts, was established on March 23 in Beijing, signaling a new era of Broadway-style development of Chinese culture.

Oriental Broadway is a JV between Chinese company Beijing Time New Century Entertainment Co. Ltd, and the 100-year-old Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment of the US.

The JV will offer services in theater management and performance promotion.

Chen Jixin, General Manager of Beijing Time New Century Entertainment Co. Ltd, said Oriental Broadway will start by promoting a selection of the more popular Broadway musicals and operas.

In addition to staging some of Broadway's best, Chen said that the JV also aims to set up an alliance of Chinese theaters, a significant development in the history of Chinese performing arts.

"It is not merely a simple alliance, but a way to arrange the schedules and sales of the theaters such that each performance is staged at the right time, in the right place, for the right audience, and most important, for the most profit," Chen explained.

She revealed that within one year, Oriental Broadway would have built an alliance of at least 11 theaters in the bigger Chinese cities, reaching 23 in five years with the inclusion of theaters in medium-sized cities.

"This move almost traces the development of Chinese cinema," according to Professor Chen Shaofeng, vice director of the Research Institute of Chinese Culture Industry at Peking University. He predicted that this paradigm shift will involve "an enormous amount of money". 

Robert Nederlander Jr., president of the US-based Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment, said that to set up such a large-scale theater alliance is not only innovative in China, but also seldom seen elsewhere in the world.

"Such a big step by a Sino-Foreign joint venture performing agency reflects the confidence of foreign business in the Chinese market, and is also an indication of further reform of the Chinese cultural industry," Chen Jixin said.

The Chinese people's demand for culture and entertainment has surged alongside the rapid growth of the economy. Latest statistics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show that in the last two years, cultural consumption amounted to 700 billion yuan (around US$84 billion).

However, Chen added that culture in China has faced great challenges. Huge international productions such as Cats and The Phantom of the Opera have overshadowed and smothered local productions, forcing local producers out of business in extreme cases.

At the same time, most Chinese theaters don't even have a strategy for development.

"They run their operations like a blind man on a blind horse. They need to learn advanced methods of theater management and operation," she said.

Chen Shaofeng said that Oriental Broadway will help to forge a theater-based industry chain with the help of foreign investment.

Last September, the Chinese government issued a landmark regulation permitting foreign investors and local companies to cooperate in the performing arts field.

Nederlander Jr. said that it was this regulation that gave Nederlander the opportunity to enter the China market.

Nederlander Worldwide Entertainment, founded in 1912, has established theater alliances in the US and Britain. In 2004, theaters belonging to the Nederlander alliance staged about 50 performances that played to more than five million people.

"I hope Oriental Broadway will help Chinese theaters attain international levels of expertise and success" Nederlander Jr. said.

Chen Jixin added: "We will introduce and localize the best Broadway productions, and in the long run work out a theater-based performance system with Chinese characteristics."

She revealed that the company's first performance season will include The Sound of Music, The King and I and West Side Story.

(Xinhua News Agency March 28, 2006)