Students perform on stage. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The Golden Hedgehog College Theater Festival, an annual student theater festival launched in 2001, closed in Beijing recently.

The China Agricultural University's play, Song of Farming, won the top award. It follows the university's history of agricultural research and its efforts of working with farmers in Quzhou county, Hebei province, in a bid to alleviate poverty. It is set against the backdrop of the 1970s.

Other award winners were the Inner Mongolia Arts University's play, Hero Khairab, based on the folk tale of a hunter boy, Khairab, who sacrificed himself to save the people of his village; and Shenzhen University's play, Searching for the Mountain, which is inspired by a story from Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio, a collection of supernatural tales by Pu Songling in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

The festival, launched in 2001 by the Beijing Theater Association, has attracted more than 1,100 universities and colleges over the years and more than 300 plays have been staged since its launch.

This year's event featured 79 plays from 55 universities and colleges spanning 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions all over China.