Chapter 60 Making money

The next day, several newspapers in the capital gave special coverage to the newly performed play.

"A new play, "Mr. Donkey", a play that exposes the ugliness of human nature"
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"China Youth Daily"

"First happy, then sad, the play "Mr. Donkey" will make you laugh and feel numb at the same time"
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Beijing Evening News

The most popular young writer Liu Zhou brings his new drama "Mr. Donkey" to the Capital Theatre, which is now on stage.
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"Beijing News"

……

In addition to these three major newspapers, the media outlets where many reporters invited by Liu Zhou yesterday worked also reported on the drama "Duds Get Water".

Suddenly, "Duds" became popular in Beijing.

Now, not only fans of Liu Zhou's books, but even drama lovers have shown some interest in the drama and are going to the Capital Theatre to buy tickets.

But to their surprise, the tickets for that day were sold out, and the tickets for the next two days were also sold out.

They originally wanted to understand the situation, but now they bought the nearest one without hesitation.

When I took it and looked at it, it was still three days later.

This suddenly gave them a greater sense of anticipation.

This is not a hunger marketing campaign by the people at the Capital Theatre, but the tickets are really selling that well.

Not to mention that Liu Zhou has a large number of book fans in Beijing, who contributed a lot to the box office.

Some students from art schools also came to buy tickets to watch the show after receiving positive comments from their teachers.

After all, this drama was put together by students from the Central Academy of Drama. Young people's competitive spirit will naturally make them look at the drama with a critical eye to see if it is exaggerated.

Especially the group of people from Beijing Film Academy, they were the most dissatisfied and wanted to come and find fault.

That’s why tickets are so hard to come by now.

Liu Zhou heard from Manager Li of the Capital Theatre that all the tickets for the first three shows had been sold out.

Now both parties tacitly agreed to extend the number of performances to ten without saying anything.

Liu Zhou also put down the newspaper in his hand and smiled.

Liu Zhou bought a copy of almost all the newspapers on the market that reported on "Duds Get Water" and read them slowly when he returned to the courtyard.

After reading so many, the majority of the reviews were still positive, and Liu Zhou automatically ignored the few negative reviews.

Among so many reports, the one that Liu Zhou likes best is the Beijing News, which makes him love and hate it.

Now that the drama "Duds" has received such a good response, Liu Zhou immediately returned to school and told his class teacher Lao Huang the news.

He was worried a lot about himself, so whether he knew it or not, Liu Zhou had to report it to him.

Then Liu Zhou went to find the actors in the crew and told Qin Hao and others about the outside reactions.

Success always makes people happy and can give people great motivation.

So that night, their performance gave people the impression that they were full of energy.

"Let's gather our energy together again!"

Once again, Principal Sun said this slogan, and the play came to an end again, and the audience burst into warm applause again!
“This play is so interesting!”

"It's true. No wonder so many newspapers say it's good."

“This is probably the best play this year!”

Looking at the audience's reactions, Liu Zhou has watched it many times, but still feels he hasn't seen enough.

The performance of the play "Duds" at the Capital Theatre was undoubtedly a great success.

Not only is there applause, but there is also strong word of mouth!

As "Duds" continued to be performed, many audiences even took the initiative to take photos with the leading actors, and some even asked for their autographs. This was simply star-level treatment.

Even when I'm out and about, I can sometimes be recognized.

There is no doubt that they are popular in Beijing!

From December 12th to January 25rd, there were ten consecutive performances at the Capital Theatre, and tickets for every show were hard to get.

Such a scene has not appeared in the Beijing's drama market for many years.

"This play is so funny, with so many laughs, but in the end, it's hard to laugh."

"It's hilarious at first, but the twist at the end is thought-provoking."

"This is definitely a meaningful drama that reflects many things," said the audience.

“The drama market needs new ideas!”

"The drama "Mr. Donkey" created by students of the Central Academy of Drama is very popular in the Beijing drama market!"

“A new-style drama that triggers thoughts…what kind of products do our audiences really need?”

This is the media report.

In the past ten days, "Duds" has become a hot topic.

Faced with such a popular situation, Manager Li kept persuading Liu Zhou to add a few more shows, but Liu Zhou refused every time.

After so many performances in a row, not to mention that the actors are a bit tired, Liu Zhou also doesn't want to exhaust all the resources. He decided to stop for a while to let the reputation of the play ferment a little bit, so that when he resumes the performance later, he can maintain the current popularity.

On the third day after the performance, Liu Zhou called them to his courtyard again after they had rested for two days.

Seeing them looking at him with some doubt, Liu Zhou smiled and said:

"There's nothing I asked you to come here for today, just to pay you your wages."

"What did I think it was?"

"Haozi, from what you said, you don't want the salary anymore?"

"Yes, why not? This is my first paycheck."

"Then I'll give you your pay first."

After saying that, Liu Zhou threw a bundle of blue banknotes to Qin Hao.

Qin Hao took it and felt the thickness with his hand, feeling something was wrong, and said:

"Lao Liu, didn't you give too much? Wasn't it eight thousand? This shouldn't be more than that, right?"

"I rounded it up for you, ten thousand!"

"Hey, boss, I'll take it."

Then Liu Zhou also gave a bundle to Zeng Li, Tian Zheng, Niu Qingfeng, Hu Jing, Qin Hailu, Cao Jun, and Sun Minghao, and some other supporting actors and behind-the-scenes people were also given bonuses ranging from one to two thousand.

"Liu Zhou, it seems that we have not let your investment down this time. You gave us more than 100,000 yuan." Qin Hailu said with a smile.

"Hey, I made some money."

Liu Zhou knew that Qin Hailu was a wealthy woman who usually wore branded clothes. This ten thousand yuan was nothing to her.

"Will you treat us to dinner tonight?"

"No problem, I'll pay for all the expenses tonight!"

“The boss is awesome.”

"Don't regret it, Lao Liu."

"It has to be Quanjude. We have to have a good meal with Liu Zhou."

"No problem, then let's go to Quanjude. Order whatever you want." Liu Zhou said proudly.

Because the Capital Theatre wanted to stage Liu Zhou's play there again, Manager Li settled the account with Liu Zhou very quickly and transferred the money to him yesterday.

I really made a profit this time.

The Capital Theatre has 1,500 seats, and the average price is around 80. Drama tickets are much more expensive than movie tickets.

The ticket price for one show is 120,000, so for ten shows that would be 1.2 million.

Then he paid 80,000 yuan in rent to the Capital Theatre and took 120,000 yuan from the box office, leaving exactly 1 million yuan.

In fact, the actual amount he received was less than one million. After all, there were a certain number of free tickets for each show, and they were paid more than 100,000 yuan in remuneration just now. Liu Zhou received about 800,000 yuan.

Liu Zhou initially invested 200,000 yuan, plus 100,000 yuan for publicity, so the profit of this drama was 500,000 yuan.

It may not be comparable to the more than one million he earned from investing in "Xiao Wu", but it took him a much shorter time to earn the 500,000, and he earned it with his own hands, which also made Liu Zhou feel more accomplished.

Besides, it’s not like the show “Duds” will not be performed anymore. All the profits earned from future performances are pure profit.

After a hearty meal with everyone, everyone left feeling satisfied.

When Liu Zhou returned to school the next day, he wanted to take a good rest and calm down, but his head teacher, Lao Huang, found him again.

Seeing Old Huang’s smiling face, Liu Zhou knew that something good was going to happen.

(End of this chapter)