As an emerging market for performing arts, Shenzhen is shaping up as a prime target for Western theaters, said Tom Viertel, CEO of Broadway Asia Entertainment, which has taken Broadway musicals to Beijing, Shanghai and other Asian cities.

Viertel, who spoke to the Shenzhen Daily on Friday after making a speech in a symposium during the ICIF on the entertainment industry, said Shenzhen was brimming with potential.

Apart from bringing musicals to the city starting this autumn, the company will set up a training school in Longgang District next year. The school will even help adapt Chinese stories into Western-style musicals. Shenzhen has a large group of young, well-educated people, state-of-art theater facilities, and an interest among the public towards performing arts, making it an ideal location for staging Broadway musicals, Viertel said.

However, Viertel is also prepared for the obstacles in the form of culture and language that prevail in the local market. "We will build up the audience gradually. For people in the United States and other parts of the world as well, it takes generations to take the loyalty to musicals. It is not an over-night sensation," he said.

Viertel wouldn't reveal the price of a ticket for "The King and I," the first show to arrive in Shenzhen this year, and nor would his local partner, Shenzhen Performance Company.

Editor: Yan