Shanghai Opera School was established in March, 1954. It is a multi-genre, multi-disciplinary and comprehensive national key secondary vocational school founded under the direct care of the party and the government, and the drama performance major is a key major in Shanghai. In 2002, the school was placed under the Shanghai Theatre Academy and became an affiliated drama academy of Shanghai Theatre Academy. In 2008, the school was established as the first batch of intangible cultural heritage inheritance base of traditional drama in Shanghai. The first principal of the school was Yu Zhenfei, a master of Jingkun art, and now the principal is Xu Xingjie.

The school has a strong faculty. In more than 50 years of teaching, there are not only the older generation of art educators who set an example, but also a large number of conscientious young and middle-aged teachers. The school often invites famous artists to give lectures and give lectures. In recent years, more than 100 experts and teachers have taught in the Theatre Academy. The joining of famous teachers has gathered the strongest teacher resources in the country for the teaching of drama academy. Through the guidance of famous teachers and the training of young and middle-aged teachers, the school has formed an echelon of old and middle-aged talents and a combination of full-time and part-time teachers.

Under the new situation, the school is moving towards the goal of "internationally renowned and first-class in China", further deepening the connotation construction, consolidating the basic education of middle schools, and becoming a first-class drama professional school with comprehensive strength in China. In recent years, the students of this school have won gold and silver prizes in all kinds of national competitions, which have repeatedly achieved great success: since 2005, the school has participated in the national children's opera Little Plum Blossom Competition and won the first place in the group total score for six consecutive years; In this year's first "National Peking Opera Student TV Competition", two students in our school won the gold medal, six students won the silver medal, three students won the bronze medal, 1 student won the "characteristic prize" and two students won the "green leaf prize", which became the drama secondary school with the most awards, which aroused widespread affirmation and encouragement from the education circles of Peking Opera and drama in China. At present, the school has established an innovative mode of cooperative and directional training of reserve talents with major operas in Shanghai. The training of opera reserve talents covers Beijing Opera, Kunqu Opera, Yue Opera, Huai Opera, Shanghai Opera, Pingtan, Funny, Puppet and other eight existing operas in Shanghai, which has achieved comprehensive coverage of all kinds of drama talents training in Shanghai.

The school attaches importance to the combination of teaching and practice, the compilation of teaching materials and the creation of plays. He has published monographs such as Teaching Materials of China Traditional Opera as a Walk-on, Art of Yuan Zaju, and Costumes of China in Past Dynasties. Since 2005, according to the spirit of the National Kunqu Opera Art Rescue, Protection and Support Implementation Plan of the Ministry of Culture, the school has implemented a systematic project of sorting out and protecting Kunqu opera materials, and started to compile 300 excellent Kunqu opera textbooks (now renamed as the Catalogue of Excellent Kunqu Opera Screenwriters). There are 20 textbooks, each with 15 scripts. Every play consists of a script and a score. The publication of the previous 13 volume has been completed. The construction of similar teaching materials is undertaken by a drama college, and there are no other examples. ......