The first half of 2019 will see the popular live theater program, New Live in China, bring 26 stage productions of different genres from the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia to cinemas across the country.

The project’s organizers, ATW Culture and Damai announced that highlights will include Les Misérables in Concert: The 25th Anniversary, from the musical’s run on London’s West End, the award-winning staging of King Lear by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has Ian McKellen in the titular role, and the Broadway production of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, featuring Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad.

Eight operas and ballet productions by The Royal Opera House will be screened in China, including a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with choreography by Liam Scarlett and Verdi’s La forza del destino headlined by Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann.

The project will also bring five productions by The Bolshoi Ballet to China, including Don Quixote performed by the principal dancers, Ekaterina Krysanova and Semyon Chudin, Sleeping Beauty performed by Olga Smirnova, as well as two contemporary choreographic works, Carmen Suite and Petrushka.

Since 2015, New Live in China, supported by the British Council, has been offered to Chinese viewers by ATW Culture, the main distributor of Britain's National Theater Live in the country.

So far 98 theater productions from international distributors have been screened at 81 venues in 26 cities across the country, attracting about 300,000 people.