Efforts to preserve the "Once Upon a Time" brand.

SGGP 22/05/2023 10:30

Ms. Tran Thuy Tien (47 years old, Ho Chi Minh City) said that she hasn't missed a single episode of "Once Upon a Time" in the past 23 years. Indeed, "Once Upon a Time" has garnered enthusiastic and passionate audiences of all ages…

The "Once Upon a Time" program, episode 33, "The Adventures of Captain Sinbad - The Great Battle Against the Mermaids," achieved a resounding victory with 55 performances.

After more than 10 years of promoting the Nụ Cười (Smiling) puppet troupe (founded during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 1983), director Huỳnh Anh Tuấn was always concerned that while there were regularly lit theater stages for adults, there were no professional theater stages with regular performances for children.

Driven by this concern, director Huynh Anh Tuan, along with his colleagues, launched the first professional children's theater on August 10, 1997, with the play "The Pig Herder Prince" (author and director: Doan Khoa), featuring artists Thanh Loc, Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, and the cast of the Nu Cuoi puppet troupe such as Dinh Toan, Hoang Trinh, Vu Minh, Minh Nhi, etc., performing regularly on weekends. After the opening play, other plays such as "Eating Starfruit and Returning Gold," "The Fisherman and the Mermaid," etc., attracted the attention of the audience.

With the desire to create a more spectacular and unique children's theater for young audiences to enjoy, director Huynh Anh Tuan took another risk with his team, bringing the children's theater program from Idecaf (over 300 seats) to Ben Thanh Theater (over 1,000 seats), investing in the production and grandly launching the first "Once Upon a Time" program in June 2000, with the play "Tam Cam".

The play ran for 15 consecutive performances, creating a miracle for children's theater at the time. By the summer of 2023, Once Upon a Time No. 34, The Princess and the Garland, was being enthusiastically rehearsed by the production team, preparing for its first performance on May 27th.

When starting the "Once Upon a Time" program, the production team wanted to create stories with a folk, fantasy, and humorous feel, close to the innocent world of children.

“However, when working on a project, our biggest concern is always the script, because children's plays are much more difficult than adult plays. The performers also expend more energy. With children, every word spoken, every situation, every action must be very carefully educational when performed on stage. From these initial difficulties, the team gradually found solutions and arrived at the answer: children need colorful, cheerful, and engaging theatrical works with captivating stories, constant innovation, and good interaction between the performers and young audiences, as well as parents,” director Huynh Anh Tuan concluded.

There were years when theater activities in Ho Chi Minh City faced many difficulties in finding and retaining audiences. Theater managers had to spend hundreds of millions of dong to invest in advertising, arrange for staff to distribute flyers in schools, "decorate" the theater space into a beautiful and eye-catching aquarium, and have 15 minutes of music and dance at the beginning of the program, along with games with prizes, to create a lively atmosphere before the play. Conversely, " Once Upon a Time" has become a solid brand in the hearts of the city's audience because of its quality, widespread appeal, and the messages that the programs convey.

Director Huynh Anh Tuan said: “The program's brand has been built over the past few decades, so we will try to maintain and organize it, because it is in the best interest of both the audience and the performers. We will strive to preserve the tradition, with artists working together to continuously and consistently produce this educational program for children. With each program, we always demand that the quality of each subsequent program be more challenging, better, more innovative, and more visually appealing than the previous one, to best meet the needs of the audience. That is also a necessary criterion for building a theatrical brand.”

The 34th installment of the "Once Upon a Time" program, "The Princess and the Thorn-Blooded Dress" (a play inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's *The Swan Flock*, directed by Dinh Toan), has just opened ticket sales for 23 performances from May 27th to June 25th and has already sold out. The play features Meritorious Artists Thanh Loc, Huu Chau, My Duyen; and artists Thanh Thuy, Bach Long, Hoang Trinh, Le Khanh, Huong Giang, Dinh Toan, Quang Thao, Tuan Khoi, Tuan Khai… Currently, an additional 20 performances have been scheduled for July 2023. If all goes well, the 34th installment of the "Once Upon a Time" program will run until the end of August 2023.

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/no-luc-giu-thuong-hieu-ngay-xua-ngay-xua-post690656.html