1990: Starting from Baojia Street

The next day, there were no work arrangements for either the orchestra or the Writers Association.

Zhou Yan invited his friends in Hong Kong to have dinner together. The last time they met was when Zhou Yan organized a concert in the Forbidden City.

Several of them did not attend the last Forbidden City concert, so they have not been there for even longer.

Originally Zhou Yan said he would make the arrangements, but Anita Mui was very enthusiastic and took charge of all the matters related to the party, and the venue was set at the private club where they met last time.

There were more people participating in the party this time. In addition to those who attended last time, there were also some people that Zhou Yan was not very familiar with, such as Alan Tam and Michael Miu.

Zhou Yan roughly counted and found that there were more than 20 people present today, which was obviously a large scale.

When Alan Tam and his friends met Zhou Yan Zhenren for the first time, they were very interested in him and kept chatting with him.

"I have already bought the tickets for your concert the day after tomorrow." Alan Tam took the tickets out of his pocket and waved them around as if showing off.

Zhou Yan didn't expect that Alan Tam actually bought the tickets and even carried them with him.

He smiled and said, "Principal, if you want to watch it, tell me as soon as possible and I will give you two tickets."

Alan Tam waved his hand, "Of course it's fine if you give me the tickets, but I'm also very good at getting your tickets. You don't know how hard it is to get tickets for A-Yan's concerts now. I only got the tickets through the help of others."

"I heard that a ticket has been sold for two thousand," said Michael Miu.

"You can't buy it for 2,000. You have to pay extra."

Zhou Yan asked with a smile, "Principal, how much did you add to this ticket?"

Zhou Yan didn't know about the scalper incident, and he was curious about how ruthless the scalper was this time.

"Haha, I won't tell you. Anyway, the extra money is enough for me to watch many concerts."

In fact, this time when Zhou Yan brought the Piano Youth Orchestra to Hong Kong, except for the first concert, the ticket prices for other shows were not too exaggerated.

The reason why the ticket price for the first show is so high is that this is Zhou Yan’s first time to perform in Hong Kong after Hong Kong’s return... In fact, this is not only Zhou Yan’s first time to perform in Hong Kong, but also his first global performance after Hong Kong’s return.

And in this concert, Zhou Yan will play the "Bauhinia March".

Since the beginning of May, "March of the Bauhinias" has been vigorously promoted by major official media, especially CCTV, which plays the song every now and then.

In addition, the video and CD of the Forbidden City concert were released worldwide shortly after the concert ended. In less than two months, the sales of this live album exceeded six million copies.

This sales volume was achieved in just over a month, surpassing the sales of all of Zhou Yan’s previous concert videos, and also surpassing the sales of all other people’s concert videos in the same period of time.

At the current rate, it will be no difficulty to break 10 million sales within this year. I believe it won't be long before it becomes the world's best-selling concert video.

Although nearly two months have passed, the album's daily sales are still able to steadily exceed 100,000. Most music albums do not have such a high initial sales volume.

Because of the hype of the Hong Kong premiere of "Bauhinia March", the concert the day after tomorrow is very popular and the ticket prices have also gone up.

Although tickets for the next few performances are also hard to get, the prices are much lower. Except for some special seats, tickets for other seats can basically be bought for less than double the price.

Seeing Alan Tam showing off his tickets, Anita Mui said with a smile, "Your own tickets are definitely not as good as ours."

“I’m in the front row too.”

Alan Tam showed everyone the ticket information again. It was indeed the first row, but the seat was at the side, not as good as Anita Mui and others’ tickets.

When Zhou Yan saw that Alan Tam’s ticket was in the first row, he knew that he must have spent a lot of money.

A lot of tickets for the concert the day after tomorrow have been given away. Most of the people present today have tickets, and their seats are in the middle of the first row.

Therefore, the best tickets available are those in the first row, near the side.

This means that the ticket in Alan Tam's hand is already the best ticket that can be bought, and such a ticket will definitely cost five figures.

However, five figures is naturally a drop in the bucket for Alan Tam and is not worth mentioning.

Because they were talking about tickets, some people who had just met Zhou Yan at the scene took the opportunity to ask Zhou Yan for tickets, and Zhou Yan readily agreed.

He knew that there would be people who would want tickets in the next two days, so he reserved tickets in the front row just for these people.

……

Because he had another schedule the next day, Zhou Yan did not drink in the evening. After dinner, they suggested going out to sing, but Zhou Yan did not go.

It was just past eight o'clock when Zhou Yan returned to the hotel.

He took a shower first, then took out a stack of scripts from his schoolbag.

This is the script of "The Greatest Showman". Zhou Yan has spent a long time on this script.

At first, he wrote the script according to the movie, but later he felt that it was not quite right.

Although "The Greatest Showman" is a musical biopic, it is still different from a musical. Many parts would be inappropriate if they were treated like a movie.

In order to make the script more suitable for a musical, Zhou Yan spent a lot of time modifying the details.

By now, these modifications have been almost completed.

At about eleven o'clock, Zhou Yan finally completed the last bit of script revision.

After finishing the script, he did not rest, but picked up the phone on the table and dialed.

……

In the Houston Theater, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was directing actors to rehearse The Sound of Music when someone suddenly ran over and called him, "Kremlin, there's a call for you."

Jabbar turned around and asked, "Who's calling?"

The man replied, "The other party calls himself Y."

When he heard that the call was from Y, Jabbar's eyes lit up and he quickly walked off the stage.

But after walking away, he remembered something and turned to the actors on the stage and said, "Alice, there is a problem with your positioning. I have already told you just now, just change it according to what I said. Butler, remember, don't have any problems with the lines again. If I can't come back for a while, Matt, you can lead everyone to go through that section again. If there are any problems, write them down and tell me when I come back. There are a lot of changes in the actors this time, I hope everyone can take it seriously and present a better effect to the audience."

"Okay." Matt nodded. "Don't worry, I will lead everyone to rehearse hard."

After giving the instructions, Jabbar rushed to answer the phone.

"Hello, is this Y?"

"Well, hello, Jabbar, how are you doing?"

"It's okay, it's okay, your call came at a perfect time, I just came to Houston yesterday." Jabbar is the resident director of "The Sound of Music", but he usually only performs this show in Houston. Most of the rest of the time, he is either in New York or Los Angeles.

Before the two of them parted, Jabeur gave Zhou Yan the contact information of all his addresses, and also gave Zhou Yan his mobile phone number. He was not afraid that Zhou Yan would not be able to contact him.

"I actually called the number in New York first, and then I found out you were in Houston." Zhou Yan said with a smile.

Zhou Yan knew that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spent more time in New York than in Houston, so he definitely called New York first. However, he couldn't find Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when he called. The person who answered the phone told him that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had already arrived in Houston, so he called Houston again.

"I see. Anyway, you found me." Jabbar smiled. "You called me. Is there any progress on the script?"

After Zhou Yan left Houston, they had several phone calls. Each time, Zhou Yan told Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that there were still some problems with the script and it needed to be revised, but he never told Kareem Abdul-Jabbar when the script would be revised. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was waiting anxiously.

But Jabbar was too embarrassed to urge him because he knew Zhou Yan was very busy.

After Zhou Yan returned last year, he started filming "Time Traveler", and then he was busy composing music for movies such as "Titanic" and "Winter Visitor".

During this year, news related to Zhou Yan could be seen every once in a while. Just by reading the news about Zhou Yan, Jabeur could feel how busy Zhou Yan was.

Especially on the music charts, Zhou Yan’s music appears on the charts almost every week, and is always at the top.

Recently, several songs from the movie "About Time" have become extremely popular. When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was at work this morning, he heard the actors in the theater listening to the songs and discussing going to the cinema to watch the movie after a while.

This is the first time that Jabbar has seen a Chinese-language film be so popular in the United States, and it has surpassed other local films of the same period.

Of course, when the movie is released, Jabbar will definitely go to the cinema to support it.

"The script has been completely written." Zhou Yan said with a smile.

"It's completely written?" Jabbar asked in surprise.

"Well, it's completely written. You should prepare it recently. I will send you the script in a few days. You may be busy later."

Zhou Yan called Jabbar to tell him to be prepared, to clear up the work at hand, and to concentrate on the musical "The Greatest Showman".

Jabbar smiled and said, "I only have the residency for The Sound of Music now. I don't have any other work. I have been waiting for your script."

"Well, that's fine. I'll be in Hong Kong these days and I'll have someone send you the script in two days."

"Can we talk about the script now?" Jabbar asked.

Poor Jabeur, he still has no understanding of the script. He is eager to know what kind of story Zhou Yan has written.

When they were chatting in Houston, Zhou Yan told Jabbar that he wanted to write the story of Barnum, the Great Showman, and also said that he wanted to write in an inspirational direction, but that was too general.

Zhou Yan looked at his watch and said with a smile, "Jabbar, it's getting late here, so I may not be able to chat with you for too long. Let me just briefly tell you the outline of the story."

"Ok, no problem."

"The protagonist of the story is Barnum, you know that..."

In the next few minutes, Zhou Yan told Jabbar the story of "The Greatest Showman".

The story is actually quite simple. To sum it up, a circus' business is not doing well, and the leader is inspired by his daughter's words to create a unique circus, so he searches everywhere for people with strange looks and special talents.

The circus gained more and more attention as bearded ladies, long-legged giants, twin flying men and a dwarf so skilled in riding that he could imitate Napoleon joined the circus.

……

This synopsis sounds pretty average, which is normal because most stories, if boiled down to a synopsis, would sound average.

Jabbar was not disappointed. He knew that if he wanted to know how the play was, he had to look at the script and the music in it.

"Has the music for this play been written?" Jabbar became concerned about the music again.

Perhaps he cares more about this than the script, because he thinks that as long as the music is good enough, the script can be put on hold.

Even if the script is not good enough, he can help revise it.

Previously, when he wanted to adapt "The Chorus", he not only valued the story, but also the music written by Zhou Yan.

As long as you have those soundtracks, the story is easy to change.

"Of course, I have already written the music, but I haven't found someone to record it yet. Can you read the score?"

"Haha, of course."

As the resident director of "The Sound of Music", Jabeur is quite knowledgeable in music and certainly has no problem reading the score.

"Since you can read the score, I will send it to you directly and let you read it together with the script. When I have time, I will organize people to record the demo."

Jabbar thought for a moment and asked, "How long will you stay in Hong Kong?"

"There are still a few days left." Zhou Yan replied.

Jabbar hesitated for a moment and said, "How about this? I'll go to Hong Kong to find you. Do you have the script with you? I still want to talk to you about the script in person."

"I have the script with me, but you don't have to come to Hong Kong. I'm going to Los Angeles in a few days anyway, so we can meet there then."

“When will you arrive in Los Angeles?”

"It should arrive on July 17th."

"That's too late. Today is only the 8th, and there are still nine days. And after you arrive in Los Angeles, I will have to run to Los Angeles. It would be better for me to go directly to Hong Kong to find you."

Zhou Yan curled the corners of his mouth. How far is it from Houston to Los Angeles? How long does it take to fly?

However, it would probably take at least a day to fly from Houston to Hong Kong. It would probably take two or three days just to go back and forth. In addition to the time cost, there is also the financial cost. The air ticket from Houston to Hong Kong is quite expensive.

In Zhou Yan's opinion, there was no need for Jabbar to go through all this.

"Why don't we wait until I get to Los Angeles..."

"Is it inconvenient for you to see me in Hong Kong?"

"That's not true."

"Since it's not inconvenient, please tell me your address and let me find you."

In the end, Zhou Yan couldn't persuade Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and had to tell him the address. (End of this chapter)