One of the hit British musicals to hit theatre, Matilda the Musical, is set to make its debut in China from June 2019 to January 2020.
The musical, winner of seven Olivier Awards and five Tony Awards, will tour to 13 cities and will focus on the story written by British writer Roald Dahl in 1988 of the same name about a precocious girl named Matilda who works her way into writing her own future.
The musical has won 87 awards and at least 93 young girls have been cast as Matilda since it opened at London's Cambridge Theatre in 2011. The producers of the show explained that the lead cast to play the five year old is always aged from 9 to 12 because kids tend to grow very quickly.
The musical is co-imported by Sevenages, a Beijing-based company specializing in musical copyrights, and Poly Theatre Management.
According to Andre Ptaszynski, the producer of the show during the press conference in the British Embassy earlier this week, "Matilda is quite a genius. She reads Dostoevsky and Dickens at age 5, but her parents don't care about her and her head teacher is a bully."
Ptaszynski says Matilda's success against all of the bad influence around her can be an inspiration to audiences.
Yang Jiamin, CEO of Sevenages, says the company will also work on making a Chinese version of Matilda, marking the second time the English-sung musical has been translated into a foreign language.
Aside from Matilda, Sevenages and Poly Theatre Management are also scheduled to bring in the following musicals for the incoming year: the Chinese version of The Sound of Music, Cinderella and Les Choristes (The Chorus).
