Dragon, choose cultural victory to make money

Chapter 190 Sending the Drama Guild on the Road

Sir Stuart soon realized two things, one good and one bad.

The good thing is that the theater industry should be able to develop.

The excellent stage effects of "Witness for the Prosecution" and the audience's applause feedback that lasted nearly ten minutes after watching the show both demonstrate the uniqueness and acceptance of the stage performance.

Under the market impact of Magic Shadow, drama has not completely lost its competitiveness and will still retain a loyal audience group.

Although its popularity will probably not be as high as before, it is worse than being completely eliminated.

Moreover, all entertainment markets are growing now. The fundamental reason is that people are starting to have spare money.

Maybe the future of drama will be stronger than it is now.

As the president of the Drama Guild, he has always regarded drama as a tool for him to achieve class advancement and he himself does not love drama.

But if you use tools too much, you will develop feelings for them.

He was still very relieved that he had found a way out in drama.

But the bad thing is that his drama industry probably cannot develop further.

The Drama Guild was not united, and within the guild, many people were eyeing his position.

The president is not in a lifetime position, and his disgraceful performance today has provided his competitors with a lot of material to attack him.

It is more difficult for him to accept a prosperous theater industry that does not belong to him than an industry that is gradually declining in his hands.

The audience around stood up and gave praise generously.

Only Tuart sat in the chair, holding his forehead, wondering if there was any way to make the Drama Guild better and keep his position.

Lead the entire guild to reform its performance style towards the new drama guild?

It's easy to say.

What is that theorem called? Inertia is the property of an object to remain in its original state of motion.

The greater the mass of an object, the greater its inertia, and the more difficult it is to change.

The Drama Guild is certainly an organization of great "quality".

Change is difficult for such an organization.

The entire crew of "Witness for the Prosecution" took the stage to take their bow and enjoyed the cheers of the audience.

A year ago, they were the leftovers in the theater industry who had no plays to perform and were marginalized.

Although he later starred in "Construct Warriors" and earned a lot of money, his reputation in the art world was still not good.

The general consensus is that stories about wearing strange-looking constructs to fight monsters are no different from legends made up by bards to earn rewards.

The quirks and twists are appealing, but there isn’t much depth or substance, and the demands on acting ability aren’t high.

Although everyone envies the profits brought by purely commercial works, such works will not add points when discussing the achievements and status of the theater troupe, and may even deduct points because they make too much money.

The mainstream view still advocates people who are willing to starve to death for the sake of artistic expression.

Of course, artistic expression and making money are not two completely opposing pursuits, it’s just that it’s too difficult to achieve them together.

Perhaps it will be many years before such a masterpiece emerges.

And "Witness for the Prosecution" is obviously one of them.

The order of curtain calls is behind-the-scenes staff, supporting actors, leading actors, and finally the main creators.

When Grandpa Karina walked onto the stage, this old troupe leader who had witnessed countless big scenes couldn't help but have his vision blurred by tears.

He never thought that at his age, he would one day be recognized by the audience again.

The audience's love is the best compliment to the performers. As for those critics, they are nothing but parasites attached to the industry.

They clearly have no ability to survive independently, but they scream the loudest.

The troupe members who had already gone on stage were divided into two teams and moved away to both sides of the stage to make way for the beloved old director.

Grandpa Karina walked to the front of the stage amid the cheers of the audience and the applause of his colleagues.

He raised his arms high and bowed deeply when the noise in the theater reached its peak.

Thank you to the audience who came to support the troupe.

Although this gift caused his long-afflicted lumbar spine to ache again, the excitement and joy in his mood was the best painkiller.

He must show enough respect to the audience. After all, their support is the reason why the troupe can survive.

Whether it is a newcomer with unknown reputation or a famous artist with a very high status, they should maintain this attitude towards the audience.

Grandpa Karina has always done the same thing.

He couldn't stand those colleagues who thought they were superior to the audience just because they had achieved a little success.

The attitude is like "It's your honor that I can perform for you, consider it my reward to you."

What is the difference between this and those people who look down on farmers just because they have enough food to eat?

Afterwards, Grandpa Karina and all the troupe members saluted together, waved goodbye to the audience, and waited for the curtain to rise.

What a great atmosphere.

It would have been even better if there hadn’t been the words “Superb Grandpa, Master of Drama, Unrivaled Role Model, Accompanying You to the Top” spelled out in flames in the audience.

It's as eye-catching as possible in the dark auditorium.

Fortunately, Karina only wrote grandfather and didn’t write her grandfather’s name, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to figure out how to come out and face the audience.

I don’t know where that kid, Karina, learned this.

She seemed to call this support.

Grandpa Karina didn't really want this kind of support.

He was finding it increasingly difficult to understand the ways of the young.

The curtain slowly rose, isolating the troupe from the bustling theater.

All good things must come to an end.

Excessive excitement will lead to emptiness. Behind the heavy curtain, Grandpa Carina suddenly felt empty, as if nothing had much meaning.

Instead, I think about the future tours, which are both troublesome and tiring.

The premiere is an artistic expression, and every performance after the premiere is considered work.

Going to work would be boring.

Well, he admitted that he was an old man who was easily bored with the same old things and just wanted to keep rehearsing new scripts.

He took out a few pieces of tea leaves, put them in his mouth and chewed them to refresh himself.

Better than drinking.

Usually he lit his pipe at such times.

But like the lawyer in Witness for the Prosecution, his doctor also forbade him to smoke a pipe.

I have to meet Drogo later, so I can't fall asleep in front of the dragon.

According to the message sent by Drogo, there are more scripts of this level waiting for the troupe.

Grandpa Carina was skeptical.

The script of "Witness for the Prosecution" can be considered first-tier even when compared with all the scripts he has ever seen in his life.

There aren't so many people at the same level.

He thought that Drogo was just making empty promises again, and now the whole group knew that the boss rarely told the truth.

Unless the author named Agatha Christie shows up.

But Drogo said she was dead.

Grandpa Carina felt very sorry that he didn't get to meet the writer who helped the New Drama Guild overcome its difficulties.

As a playwright, he was more aware of Agatha's strengths.

So in addition to the fact that they had not met, what made him even more regretful was that the writer did not leave behind more works.

Otherwise, with her talent, she would definitely leave her name in literary history.

Grandpa Carina left the stage, and the other members of the troupe were still celebrating. The old leader needed to plan for the future of the new drama guild.

When they arrived at a reception room in the theater, Drogo was already waiting inside.

There is also a strange face.

"Mr. Drogo."

"Congratulations on your premiere," Drogo said. "It was a great success. I feel like it won't be long before the New Drama Guild takes over from the Drama Guild."

"It's mainly due to the script," Grandpa Karina answered modestly.

"After a few performances of Witness for the Prosecution, you should stop performing it," Drogo said suddenly.

"What?" Carina's grandfather didn't understand what this sudden turn of events meant. In the previous sentence, he was still congratulating the performance, and in the next sentence, he was saying don't perform it anymore.

"It's not about withdrawing investment, it's about assigning you more important tasks."

Drogo hurried to explain.

He looked at the old man's pupils which had dilated just now, and the ups and downs made the old man stick out his tongue.

"Like I just said, the New Drama Guild should eliminate the old conservative organization, so you should prepare to expand the scale and not just have one troupe anymore."

"That might not be easy," replied Grandpa Carina.

As the former honorary president of the Drama Guild, although he has no real power, he still knows a lot about the Drama Guild's operating model.

After the implementation of the copyright system, drama guilds can be said to be the biggest beneficiaries.

They registered the copyright of almost all the plays under the name of the organization.

If other theater troupes wanted to perform those classic plays, they had to join the guild and pay high licensing fees.

This is the drama guild’s biggest source of income right now.

It is impossible for a theater troupe to continuously produce new works. Even if it can, there is no way to guarantee the quality.

Therefore, it is necessary to rehearse classic works from the past.

New theatre troupes must also start by performing classic plays and gain a reputation so that their works will have audiences watching them.

The drama guild thus completed a de facto monopoly on the drama market.

Almost all theater troupes are members of the guild, and the copyright of works created by guild members also belongs to the guild.

And so it grew bigger and bigger.

Many people in the industry have long been resentful of this, but dare not speak out. After all, survival is more important than dignity.

If a theater troupe dares not to join the guild and directly rehearses its own works, and unexpectedly achieves success, the drama guild also has a response plan.

Use that set of public opinion offensive to make the reputation of the small theater troupe plummet to the point where there are no audiences and it is about to go out of business, and then buy it up at a low price.

This process has become very familiar.

If there is a theater troupe that dares to resist and wants to take the guild to court, that’s fine too.

The Guild can show what money can make the lawyers work.

Therefore, the only way Grandpa Carina could think of to bring down the Drama Guild was to suddenly come up with a large number of new scripts of extremely high quality.

These scripts can be provided to theater troupes that wish to break away from the guild's control so that they can survive.

It sounds simple, but the problem is obvious: where can we get so many high-quality scripts?

Before Grandpa Carina asked the question, Drogo gave the answer with his actions.

He brought out a treasure chest monster.

The treasure chest monster opened its mouth and spit out several stacks of scripts.

"What is this?" asked Grandpa Karina uncertainly.

"A script, what else could it be?"

Grandpa Carina's first reaction was that Drogo bought ordinary scripts from those unknown writers.

It could even be an exercise by students at a drama academy, barely a script, but in reality it is quite immature and difficult to stage into a play.

Then he noticed the author of the first script.

It was Agatha Christie whom he had been thinking about all the time.

"She, isn't she dead?"

"She is dead, but I didn't say she left behind a work when she was alive?" said Drogo.

Then he pointed to the scripts on the table and said, “This pile is all Agatha’s work, the one next to it is Quinn’s, and the other one is Carl’s.

"These are all suspense types, and there are also non-suspense types. This is Ibsen, that is Shaw, and those over there are Chekhov."

Drogo pointed out the momentum of selling cabbages in a pile of scripts.

“Are these all dead genius writers?”

This is how Drogo introduced Agatha to him before.

"Well, you can understand it that way."

Grandpa Carina couldn't understand why he had never heard of these writers' names.

If they are all as good as Agatha, why don't they have any reputation at all?

There is some truth in the fact that Agatha is a buried genius. There are always some geniuses who are obscured in the dust and are not discovered until after their death.

But it's a bit strange that so many geniuses are buried.

He looked at Drogo and suddenly had a terrible guess.

Could it be that the Drogo Group actually has a bunch of talented writers imprisoned in some dragon haunt?

Then they were forced to write scripts every day, and if they didn’t write well enough, they would be eaten.

That’s why the outside world has never heard of these authors.

Grandpa Karina was so frightened by his own thought that he broke out in a cold sweat.

If this is true, then the Drogo Group is much more ruthless than the Drama Guild.

He was already seventy years old, so he was dead, but what about those who had followed him to establish the New Drama Guild?
Many of them are still very young. I wonder if I am harming these young people in pursuit of my ideals.

"Why are you shaking?" Drogo asked in confusion. "You didn't think I had captured a bunch of writers?"

"Yes and no!" Karina's grandfather spoke nervously.

"Why should I sign them if I captured them?" Drogo said.

Oh, yes.

Grandpa Karina suddenly felt that it made a lot of sense.

"So who are these people?"

"Have you ever heard of the Sunken Empire?" Drogo asked mysteriously.

"know."

This is a very famous legend. There was once a glorious civilization on an archipelago, but it offended the gods and was punished by them.

Earthquakes and tsunamis destroyed the islands, destroyed the empire, and sank everything to the bottom of the sea.

"We discovered the remains of the empire, and these works were found in the remains, and after deciphering them, they were adapted to suit our times."

Drogo said seriously.

A world with gods is a good place. All things that cannot be explained can be forcibly explained under the banner of gods.

Why can literary works be preserved under the sea?

Don’t ask, if you ask, it’s a miracle.

And Grandpa Carina really didn't ask. Perhaps it was the romanticism unique to literary and artistic workers that made him really believe what Drogo said.

"That means we can perform all these scripts?" His tone was full of excitement.

Drogo then said, "The plan is this: these scripts are for the troupes that join the new drama guild. After you read them, you can assign scripts suitable for different troupes.

“As long as a theater troupe that joins the guild does not withdraw in the second year, it can enjoy free licensing fees in the first year.

"Also, our licensing fee is a percentage of the box office, unlike the Drama Guild which sets a fixed price, so small theatre companies can have less pressure to survive."

This move was a heavy blow to the Drama Guild.

"What about my troupe? Can they also come to rehearse these scripts?" Grandpa Carina thought Drogo's plan was good, but his team was ignored.

"You are responsible for cooperating with this person."

Drogo pointed to the unfamiliar face in the room.

"This is the mayor of the Silver City-State. As the best troupe in the guild, you will present a play based on him."

This is said to the city lord, because the guild now has only one troupe, and no matter what they are, they are the best.

"This play is not perfect at the moment, and we still need you to fill it in. I believe that with your writing ability and the city lord's rich experience, you will be able to perfect this script."

Drogo pulled out the script outline.

There is no way. There are too many Earth political stories in the original work, and Drogo doesn't know much about the politics of the Silver City-State. I can't complete the localization myself, so I can only give an outline.

The name of the outline is very brief.

《Yes, City Lord》

(End of this chapter)