The Chinese Children's Art Theater was established in 1956. Since its inception, the theater has played a representative and exemplary role in guiding the development of children's art. It has staged more than 130 high-quality children's plays for some 380 million youngsters across China with a style that vacillates from the traditional to the modern, native to foreign. Among the plays, 18 obtained national awards and over 60 artists were honored on several occasions.

In its first decade, the theater produced a number of excellent plays, including "Malan Flower," "Little White Rabbit," "Clever Housewife," "A Revolutionary Family," "The Youth Garrison," "Liu Wenxue, the Young Hero," "In the Name of the Revolution," "Yue Yun," "Fly Wing to Wing," "Magic Boat," "The Young Generation," "Spring Melody" and "100 is Not a Full Mark," to name a few. At the First National Modern Drama Gala, "Malan Flower" was awarded the first prize for the performance, second prize for literacy creation, directorship, dance design, and third prize for set design. Zhao Qiansun and Lian Dezhi, who played the Old Cat and Little Monkey respectively, placed third in the acting category. In 1991, Liu Xiaoming won the 8th Theatrical News Plum Blossom Award for the role of Ma Lang in the play.

Since 1978, the theater has continued to stage many prize-winning plays, including the "Newspaper Boy," "Strange 101," "The Secret of Handan Bird," "My Childhood on the Black Soil Land," "Boy Zhi," "A Black Boy on the Great Wall," "The Origin of Human Feeling," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "So Good to Know You" and "Green Bird." The theater has also toured in Singapore and Hong Kong. 

Currently, the famous theater artists include Wang Tiecheng, Fang Jufeng, Qin Kun, Lian Dezhi, Li Ruojun, Wang Yang, Liu Xiaoming, Ouyang Yibing, Miao Peiru, Fan Siqian, Dong Jiliang, Zou Ye and Zhou Zhiqiang.

In the new century, the Chinese Children's Art Theater will devote every effort to creating more elaborate works that will enrich the hearts of young people and serve as their spiritual home. 

Address: No 64, Donganmen Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Postal code: 100006
Tel: (010) 65134115
Fax: (010) 65134116

Repertoirs of the Theater

 The Malan Flower

Beautiful Malan flowers are blossoming everywhere on Malan Mountain, which is home to a 500-year-old grandpa tree and many lovely animals. All of them love the god of the Malan flower, Malang. One day, when Malan flowers were blooming on the mountain, senior Wang, who lived down the mountain, climbed up to pluck the flowers for his daughters. However, he fell down the cliff and was saved by brave Malang. Wang was very grateful and liked the young man very much. At that moment, beautiful songs echoed the mountain from Xiaolan reaching Malang and the old man; Malang sang back in an antiphonal style. Wang explained that the voice belonged to his daughter, and that she had an identical twin. Malang gave a magic Malan flower to Wang and asked him to give it to one of Wang's  daughter who wanted to marry him. But a greedy Old Cat wanted to make the magic flower his own. When Wang went home and told of his magical experience, Dalan, Wang's elder daughter, grabbed the flower immediately, showing her willingness to marry Malang. But when she learned that Malang had no house or possessions, Dalan threw away the flower and Xiaolan, the younger daughter, picked it up, having decided to live with Malang. Under the bright, full moon, Malang held a lot of lights in the shape of water lily and drove a boat to marry his new bride, Xiaolan. The marriage ceremony was simple yet ardent. And Xiaolan and Malang lived a very happy life.

One year later, Xiaolan returned to her father's home with the magic flower. The greedy Old Cat furtively followed Xiaolan. With a pithy formula of the magic flower, many precious gifts suddenly appeared. The greedy Old Cat was very jealous. She used Dalan's jealousy to kill Xiaolan in an attempt to keep the magic flower in her possession. However, the Old Cat was finally taken to court. Malang asked the magic flower to revive Xiaolan. And the beautiful Malan Mountain once again flowed with laughter and song. 

 Brief introduction to the large-scale musical drama Shangri-La

A simple and honest Tibetan boy, Dawa, was not only very strong, but he could "talk" to the mountains, rivers, forests, flowers, grass, blue skies and even learn how to imitate the sound of nature. But the witch wanted people "not to sing, not to think and not to expect" to dominate human world, and turned the people looking for Shangri-La into wild yaks. Dawa was very furious about this. With his extraordinary strength, he tore off the witch's black robe that gave her her supernatural powers. The witch, in turn, cursed Dawa: He would become a stone lion in seven days unless he could wear a hat woven with peacock feathers. The angry Dawa threw the witch into a gully, but she still gave out a mirthless sneer. At that moment, a beautiful golden peacock ran by; it was being pursued by Dawa's brother, although Dawa liked the peacock very much and was strongly opposed to his brother's misdeeds. Dawa decided to save the peacock at any cost, even though it would eliminate the witch's curse. Otherwise, when the moon rises for the seventh time, Dawa would be turned into a lion. To threaten Dawa, the witch admitted that the peacock is actually a princess from the kingdom of heaven who was turned into a peacock. It seems that the princess was bored with the stagnant life in heaven because there were "no memories of yesterday, no innovations and curiosity for today and no expectations for tomorrow." She therefore escaped from heaven to look for the beautiful Shangri-La. The witch, who feared people's yearning and pursuit of Shangri-La, hoped to kill the peacock. But Dawa freed the golden peacock and he and his brother were beaten into unconsciousness. The brothers decided to look for the Shangri-La when they woke up, although their expectations of Shangri-La were very different: Dawa thought it would be a "very beautiful" place, while his brother expected it to be a place where he could get whatever he wanted. The golden peacock was taken care of by foxes which were Dawa's friends. But the witch, once again came to cause mischief, successfully instilling some doubts in Dawa, the golden peacock and his brother. As a result, the golden peacock was captured yet again, and when Dawa went to save her, he also got caught. Luckily, they were both saved by the foxes.

Dawa's brother went to the "colorful sea" and the witch lied to him, saying it was Shangri-La and that he could be king there. Again, the witch caused more mischief. The golden peacock was filled with contradictions: on one hand, she was becoming more grateful to Dawa as time went by; but on the other hand, she was also becoming more concerned about being the wife of a lion. Finally, the peacock left Dawa to look for her own Shangri-La. Dawa was very disheartened: "Why is the heart lying behind not as beautiful as the face?" he asked. What's more surprising is that his brother became king and he completely ignored Dawa. Dawa then found out it is yet another conspiracy by the witch. She again tried to convince Dawa to kill the golden peacock. But Dawa could never harm a person to protect himself; instead, he saved the life of the peacock again. However, he was turned into a stone lion and the golden peacock became a princess again.

The princess was repentant of what she had done, and her tears fell from the sky. But,  surprisingly enough, the stone lion turned back to Dawa again whenher tears fell down on him.

In the end, Dawa, the princess and many others were inquiring where the real Shangri-La was. Dawa finally realized that Shangri-La was where the heart and soul were.

We should all aspire to create Shangri-La ourselves.

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