Few may have believed that a group of US teens could perform Chinese Mermaid, a classical Chinese play for children, fully in Chinese, but they would have been proven wrong as those US teens made a successful debut on Saturday, kicking off the 12th China Children’s Theater Festival in Beijing.

The 15 teens, aged between 12 and 17, are from four cities in Montana and California. They stood out from more than 200 children who auditioned for the play and spent almost two years rehearsing, according to Chen Suhan, director and producer of the play’s US version.

“Their performance was incredible,” commented a middle school student who attended the show’s daytime performance on Sunday. “They speak Chinese so well and it’s no easy task that they have memorized all the lines of this more than one-hour-long play,” he added.

The show’s success is thanks to the China-US Youth Theater Exchange Program, supported by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, affiliated with China’s Ministry of Education. The program combines theater and Chinese language learning to promote language education exchanges and youth exchanges between China and the US.

In 2022 April, China National Theater for Children authorized the Rocky Mountain Ballet Theater in Montana to re-arrange and rehearse this Chinese classic.

Debuting in 1980 at China National Theater for Children, Chinese Mermaid was written by Huang Zongjiang and Ruan Dandi and is based on folklore. It follows Jin Zhuzi, a kind, brave, and determined boy who spent his whole life going above and beyond to rescue Cai Ping, a kind-hearted girl who was kidnapped by an evil Dragon Prince and turned into a mermaid.