Making It in Shanghai: An Evening With Ann James

In this series we are focusing on expats that have been successful during their time in Shanghai; whether It’s through business, industry or entertainment.

I met with Ann James on a Tuesday evening at Shanghai Slims, this was pretty much her only free time to chat and even then she had shit to do. She is arguably the busiest woman in Shanghai. A little back ground on Ann, she is a lady of many talents, producer, director, recent film star and owner of Dreamweaver productions. Originally from Texas she has been in Shanghai for 5 and a half years.

I met her during the beginning of one of the first rehearsals for her upcoming show The Titanic. A cast of around 30 actors milled around in the top floor of the bar/restaurant Shanghai Slims which rents out this room for functions.  She was welcoming people whilst simultaneously talking to her Agent and gesturing me to take a seat. 

She waved the audience off a greeted her new cast, introducing Brian Wang and Eric Paci to the cast as co-creative directors. They talk the cast through the contract and set about discussing terms. This is possibly the most professional beginning to a play I have ever sat in on (that isn’t West End/Broadway). Ann cracked jokes but kept the tone professional and respectful. As I watched her command the room and the cast warm up to her, it became clear to me why people call her the matriarch of Shanghai’s theatre world.

There is something about the way she holds herself, the way she captivates the audience that’s makes the dullest conversation feel like you’re settling in for an evening of storytelling. Jokes are cracked about the use of alcohol during rehearsals ‘excessive’ use is banned, but ‘use’ is acceptable. Everybody laughs and settles down to sign their contracts.

Each actor taking part in the show Titanic: Ship of Dreams is being paid for their time and on top of this Ann offers a profit share to each person, this is very unusual for a semi-pro, semi-am' dram show and illustrates the generous nature of Ann’s character, something I will come to have a deeper understanding of throughout our conversation.

She left Brian and Eric to handle the rehearsal and we went and sat outside so we could talk without being in the way of the practising thespians. After seeing the size of the cast I had yet more reason to admire Ann, Eric and Brian for the immensity of the project they’re under taking and the short time they have to prepare for it.

Immersive theatre, like Punch Drunk’s Sleep No More and what Ann is trying to do with Titanic is no easy feat, immersive theatre requires a huge amount of rehearsal, choreography and a detailed and complicated set. One of the first questions I asked Ann was why she chose such a difficult project. She told me about Brian going to see Sleep No More and leaving so excited and enthusiastic that when he came to her with his vision that they both felt so inspired that Titanic ship of dreams was born.

Things haven’t always been easy for Ann in terms of making theatre in China, anything creative has very heavy regulations imposed on it, especially if foreigners are involved. 

Ann once stage a played called ‘she says’ a bi-lingual (Chinese and English) play about women exploring their identity and sexuality. It was very out there. Whilst if this had been staged in London or New York it would barely have made a Grandma blush, in China this was pretty crazy. A room full of a couple of hundred women on their feet shouting ‘VAGINA’ in English and Chinese. Whilst this play had previously been approved by the cultural police (yep, that’s a thing) it was performed at around the same time that there were issues with another foreign performers. Unfortunately it was all too much and everything got shut down for a while. The venue that hosted these two shows had to revert to showing DVDs for 6 months… not ideal.

Ann really is at the forefront of theatre in Shanghai, she is constantly breaking barriers and making it easier for other foreigners to be involved in creative industries. For a long time she was the only person in the whole of China to hold an entertainment visa sponsored by her own company. When she was applying for the license to make the Titanic show she needed to produce her own forms for the cultural bureau as the correct forms didn’t exist. She is paving the way for others.

One of Ann’s biggest credits to date was her role in Wolf Warrior 2, one of the top 100 grossing films of all time, which is a pretty huge deal. She was not looking for a move into film, but when the big screen calls… She has now been catapulted to fame and is often stopped on the streets and asked for autographs by passersby.

One thing I was really curious about was how it felt to be a black woman featuring in a very pro-China film. Ann says originally she didn’t know what the film was about as her lines were in English and everyone else’s were in Chinese. One thing she says she hopes will come out of the film is that the lives of black people in China will become easier. Many Chinese people have little to no exposure to people of other races and she is hoping that by having a film showing Chinese and black people working together it may help to change peoples perceptions and break down the race divide.

Whilst I asked Ann if film was something she was going to focus on, she said that theatre was her first love. She really enjoyed making the film and would not turn down other opportunities, yet theatre is where she belongs.

I asked Ann if she had any advice for people looking to start their own theatre company in China. Her reply was ‘ DON’T’ she laughed and clarified. Being a creative in the entertainment industry is extremely difficult. You need a very good team, you need to know and understand the laws inside and out. You need to be willing to wave good bye to politics and focus more on the entertainment side. You need to be prepared to hear ‘no’ and not understand why. It's very difficult. 

I left my meeting with Ann as she has to go back to rehearsals and I pondered what she had told me whilst I travelled home. We all know that being creative here is difficult but maybe I hadn’t realised how difficult. I have bosses and HR teams and legal teams that shield me from a lot of the drama. Ann doesn’t. It must take real guts to do what she is doing. Because of her, creating theatre in China is going to be easier for every single person that follows in her footsteps.

You can now buy tickets for The Titanic through Daimai and 247 tickets.

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