The third National Performance Exhibition of Excellent Small-Theater Drama Plays in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, is offering local audiences immersive, close-range live drama experiences, with some plays performed entirely outdoors.

The shows take the form of flash mobs, workshops, or short performances in parks, shopping malls, and libraries, so citizens can encounter art by chance in the middle of their everyday life.

At the opening show on Thursday outside the city's Lion Mountain Grand Theater, dancers, musicians, and actors recreated scenes from the famous ancient painting "Prosperous Suzhou".

Viewers moved from one mini-stage to another to watch the dance performance, the local traditional storytelling with plucked strings, and a musical before entering the theater for a Kunqu opera performance.

Instead of the traditional stage with the audience facing only one side, the theater seats wrap around three sides of the performance area. Audiences can sit just meters from the actors, feeling the power of traditional opera up close.

"The small-theater sector today shows higher quality, and the artists taking part are increasingly diverse. Compared with large-scale productions, small-theater works are more exploratory, experimental and avant-garde. They resonate strongly with younger audiences. This platform also brings veteran artists back to mentor emerging troupes, refine vocal traditions, and bring them to the modern stage," said Fu Yixuan, secretary-general of the China Theater Association.

At the drama play event in Suzhou running until September 21, 23 excellent plays from across China are taking the stage, including Kunqu opera, Peking opera, Yu opera, Yue opera, musicals, spoken drama, and children's theater.