Best bets

Cinematic Shadow Play: Feathers of Fire

Date: Nov 11-16 - 7:30 pm

Venue: Shanghai Theater Academy

Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic is a visually breathtaking cinematic shadow play for all ages, created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian, a 2014 Guggenheim fellowship-winning filmmaker/visual artist. The play unfolds an action-packed magical tale of star-crossed lovers from the 10th-century Persian epic Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), - Zaul and Rudabeh, who triumph at the end against all odds. Rahmanian's graphics, derived from the visual tradition of the region, will be rendered as puppets, costumes, masks, scenography and digital animation, all of which will come to life in a "live animation" shadow casting technique perfected by shadow master Larry Reed on a cinema-size screen. The play also features an original score by the acclaimed musical team, Loga Ramin Torkian and Azam Ali. Feathers of Fire had its world premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2016. There is a great power in live performance. Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic exposes children and adults to a broader view of this world. It introduces new characters and places, teaches them about the history of civilization and reinforces the positive attributes of what it means to be human.

Charlie Puth: Voicenotes World Tour 2018 Live in Shanghai

Date: Oct 31 - 8 pm

Venue: Mercedes-Benz Arena

Over the past three years, Charlie Puth has proven himself commercially with the extraordinary success of multiplatinum hits, "One Call Away," "Marvin Gaye," and "We Don't Talk Anymore" from his platinum-selling, Top 10 debut album Nine Track Mind, as well as his breakout smash "See You Again" - the best-selling song of 2015 worldwide that spent 12 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, earned him three Grammy nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, and 9x-platinum certification in the U.S. But the New Jersey-born singer, songwriter, musician, and producer was also eager to prove himself artistically when it came time to make his second album, Voicenotes, named after the trusty iPhone app he uses to collect his musical ideas. Puth co-wrote every song and recorded and produced the album entirely himself (barring one song he coproduced with Max Martin) mainly at his home studio in Los Angeles. On the lyrical front, Voicenotes is an album that is largely about Puth's struggle to find a normal relationship when his own life has hardly been normal since finding multiplatinum success, and the anxiety that pursuit has induced.