The Tibetan class is a contractual program that started in 2017 when the Tibetan Drama Company sent 22 students from across the Tibetan Autonomous Region on a four-year college program at the Shanghai Theatre Academy.

Half of the students are from the pastoral areas in Tibet while the other half hails from Lhasa, said Yang Jia, the head teacher for the class at STA.

"They were so shy at the beginning, always trying to hide their faces," she recalled. Through the past four years, they learned through reading, experiencing and rehearsing classical plays such as Romeo and Juliet, The Tempestand now Hamlet.