The Beijing Tianqiao Musical Annual Ceremony opened with a gala on Tuesday.
Twenty-one awards were announced at the event in Tianqiao Performing Arts Center, with musical actors including Zong Juntao and Ding Zhenying taking the awards for "best musical actor" and "best musical actress".
Before the gala, a red carpet event was held featuring nominees from 38 productions.
The gala opened with the music of The Phantom of the Opera, followed by programs staged by international artists. This included John Owen-Jones, a record-breaking West End and Broadway actor and singer, who performed in The Phantom of the Opera, and actress Annemieke van Dam, who played leading roles in the German musical Rebecca, which was staged at Tianqiao Performing Arts Centre from Nov 20 to 24.
Before the gala, the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center co-initiated a forum celebrating the growing musical theater market in China. During the forum, the China Association of Performing Arts published a report on the market, saying that from January to October, there were 13,600 musical performances across the country, up 5.5 percent compared to the same period in 2023. Receipts reached around 1.4 billion yuan ($193.42 million), a year-on-year increase of 26.7 percent. Audience attendance increased to more than 5.8 million, up 4.6 percent.
By the end of 2024, the number of musical performances is expected to reach 17,000, with revenues surpassing 1.6 billion yuan and the number of viewers exceeding 7 million.
