Perfection of 10, Thu 13 to Sat 15 Sep

I've got a play coming up! Or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say WE've got a play coming up. I was invited to crazy-experimental director Sean Tobin to be part of a team of ten Singaporean playwrights, each creating a segment of a wacky play marking the Esplanade's tenth anniversary!

Perfection of 10

Thu 13 to Sat 15 Sep, 8pm (additional Sat matinee at 3pm)

Esplande Theatre Studio

Tickets at $25 from SISTIC.

10 established Singapore Playwrights were invited to reflect on their experiences as theatre-makers and their notions of perfection. They then set out to capture a perspective of life on earth, in Singapore and in the theatre, through their own 10 minutes of stage time.

10 stage items from the past productions of 10 established local Theatre companies help create a world in which these characters can reside.

The perfect child from the perfect home, the perfect actor on the perfect stage, in front of the perfect audience, and of course the perfect review. Not to forget perfect relationships, the perfect life, and the perfect death. Can all this be captured in the perfect play?

Are these ‘mirrors of nature’ real or imagined? Archetype or stereotype? Is this biography or fakery? Is this existentialism or entertainment? Comedy of Manners or a Problem Play?

As we join in celebrating Esplanade’s 10th Birthday, we also celebrate the trials and accomplishments of Singapore and its stage, through the intercepting thoughts of 10 well-loved local playwrights and 4 actors collectively asking, “Why do we bother?”

Performed in English with some Mandarin, Malay and dialect, with English surtitles. Suitable for patrons aged 16 years and above.

Performed by Ang Hui Bin, Patricia Mok, Rizman Putra, Tan Shou Chen
Written by Desmond Sim, Ng How Wee, Irfan Kasban, Jason Wee, Jean Tay Kaylene Tan, Li
Xie, Verena Tay, Ng Yi-Sheng & Zizi Azah
Directed by Sean Tobin
Dramaturgy by Low Kee Hong
Produced by Michele Lim
Set Design by Wong Chee Wai
Light Design by Adrian Tan
Costume Design Hayden Ng

There will be a post-show discussion with the artists.

Straits Times review of Lan Fang Chronicles, Sat 26 May 2012

Click for a bigger pic.

Reviews for Lan Fang Chronicles

They've come in from the Business Times and TODAY - sadly, the Straits Times and Flying Inkpot haven't reviewed us yet, even though we were the only opening show in the Singapore Arts Festival that actually runs through the entire festival and thus really could benefit through ticket sales...

"LFC may seem, in its presentation, deceptively straightforward (give or take a few dramatic flourishes) but that’s what I liked about it. Without shoving things in our faces, it nevertheless manages to evoke a sense of mystery and I left the site full of wonder." -Mayo Martin, TODAY/For Arts' Sake, 20 May 2012

"If history could be taught this way, a lot more people would be interested in their local history. ...By approaching Lan Fang as an artist and reconstructing knowledge out of memoirs, records, interviews and suppositions, he [Choy Ka Fai] encourages us to imagine, thus bringing to life what he calls the Chronicles of Disappearance, of the Lan Fang's Republic's history." Cheah Ui-Hoon, Business Times, 22 May 2012


 Also something from a site called Photojournalist! (A lot of spoilers, though.)

"The 兰芳记 Lan Fang Chronicles 2012 (Installation Performance) is highly recommended and I strongly encourage all of you reading this post to watch it there!"

 Hope more press comes over the next weekend!

This Saturday, I'm hosting a talk with Singapore's top theatre reviewers!


It's the 4:30 Open Panel Discussion noted below:

Open Roads: Stage Talk -Theatre Talks Back and Open Panel Discussion
Saturday 28 January 2012, 2-6pm
Theatre Talks Back, 2-4pm
Open Panel Discussion, 4:30-6pm
The Substation Theatre
Admission: Free
This is an InHouse event

Open Roads: Stage Talk was a programme initiated by The Substation in collaboration with The Flying Inkpot Theatre and Dance in 2010 to invite members of the public to come together and converse about local plays. After two successful runs in 2010 and 2011, Open Roads: Stage Talk comes to a close.

*To end the programme on a high note, local theatre reviewers have been gathered for a final pow-wow session– an open panel discussion about the current state of theatre criticism and their personal processes of reviewing performances. Join Life! journalist Corrie Tan, TODAY journalist, Mayo Martin, local online arts journal The Flying Inkpot‘s Matthew Lyon and freelance reviewers, Ng Yi-Sheng and Tara Tan in an open discussion about local theatre. Look forward also to the first of our Theatre Talks Back sessions, where invited theatre practitioners will talk about their recent productions in a Q&A presentation.

The Theatre Talks Back session is hosted by invited theatre practitioners who will talk about their recent productions in a Q&A presentation. Cake Theatrical Productions will be showing a video presentation of Decimal Points: 4.44 and talking about the trials and tribulations of putting together the first co-presentation between The Substation and Cake Theatrical Productions.

I'm acting in a show in the Singapore Arts Festival!

Technically, it's part of Flipside. It's a 10-minute play called "The Tent" by Wee Lilin, to be performed as part of Tisch Asia's "Love and Other Disasters" on Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19 May, 7:15pm and 8:15pm at the Esplanade Concourse.

Come come! It's free entry. Facebook page here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=161177063944462

The Esplanade and The Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch Asia team up to bring you two nights of short plays about love, loss, and zombies.

Performing on the Concourse Stage, Tisch Asia writers will be showcasing some of the most popular plays from the past two years.

This is a free event, and is part of the Flip Side, the Esplanade's companion event to the Singapore Arts Festival.

Featuring plays by Josh Billig, Adeline Food, Lou-Lou Igbokwe, John Marsh, and Wee Li Lin.

Direction by Maxim Dashkin, Drayton Hiers, Dean Lundquist, and Wee Li Lin.

And starring Michael Chua, Tim Garner, Sophie Khoo, Bill Kovacsik, Jacqueline Landsman, Ng Yi-Sheng, Glory Ngim, Adeline Pang, and Erik Wayne.

With Philip Leung as the Emcee.

TWO SHOWS NIGHTLY: May 18 & 19 at 7:15 and 8:15. Each performance is the same set.

PANEL DISCUSSION: From Ideas to Theatre Idols

(I'm moderating this!)

Meet three past winners of Theatre Idols, an annual event where staged readings of original new plays are held and the winner decided by public voting for a full staging of his/her play. These upcoming talented playwrights - Jacke Chye, Edgar Liao and Yak Aik-Wee - will chat about their experiences writing plays and taking part in Theatre Idols and also discuss real challenges facing new playwrights in the Singapore theatre scene.

Organised by the National Arts Council's Mentor Access Project and supported by The Arts House.

Free Admission.

Friday 11 February 2011,
7pm - 8.30pm ,
Arts House Play Den

Event details from: http://www.theartshouse.com.sg/event_details_2011.php?id=43. For enquiries, contact The Arts House at: 6332 6900.

Re: the Singapore Arts Festival Blog

I've just blasted the National Arts Council Festivals Department on my blog for refusing to give the Flying Inkpot the tickets they asked for. Less than a week before the Festival began, they only agreed to supply 8 out of 13 tickets requested. No other theatre company has ever treated us so shabbily.

Read about it here.

But here's a little something extra: I'm feeling a little guilty about the whole situation. Why?

Reason #1. My own ticket allocation is not affected. This is because I pulled out of doing my reviews for the Flying Inkpot at the last minute. Why? Because the plays I'd decided to cover were "Cargo" and "Football, Football", and the Straits Times had later approached me to review these same plays.

I felt bad about cancelling these ticket requests with Inkpot and the Festivals Department, but they were pretty cool with it in the end. We've done this kind of thing before. In the end, it's the same person reviewing, but for a different company. Kenneth and Matthew volunteered to take over my review commitments.

Reason #2. I was told when I set up the Festival blog that me and my team of four or five could have "some" tickets. I went and assembled a team of about 20, so we could cover all the shows, and receive comps to them, too. And all our comp requests were approved.

The thing is, we're not going to be doing in-depth, incisive, Inkpot-standard reviews of the shows we're watching. That wasn't part of the agreement. The idea was just to write "something".

Some of us, like Rui An, will probably write really analytical reviews, but most of us will post a more personal response. And that's if we're lucky - so far, most of the rest of the team hasn't blogged much at all.

So I'm feeling a wee bit responsible for this mess. The least I can do is decry it and confess it.

Yurg. It also feels silly to go on about this when the Yong Vui Kong verdict is coming up on Friday. Also PinkDot on Saturday. I'll be there.

Singapore Arts Festival Blog!

I'm doing the official independent blog for the Singapore Arts Festival 2010! Check it out here:

http://singartsfestival.wordpress.com/

The official independent bit means that the department at NAC asked me to do it and is giving us complimentary tickets, but will have no control over what we say over there, though Kee Hong says he'll drop me a mail if there's a factual inaccuracy.

So far he hasn't contradicted my postulations that the guys who cut back on W!ld Rice and TheatreWorks funding are idiots, and that the marketing materials are weird and scary, so you know, I'm assuming that's factually true. :)

Other people who've agreed to blog include fellow Inkpot reviewer Ho Rui An, classical music reviewer Dr Chang Tou Liang, playwrights Irfan Kasban, Bryan Tan and Faith Ng, choreographer Kiran Kumar, poet Pooja Nansi, christ, who else, theatre researcher Ken Takiguchi, music writer Jeremy Yew, art writer Wong May Yee, arts worker Ephraim Loy, writer Richard Lord... y'know, I'm going to get their titles mixed up soon so let's just assume they're all cool interesting intelligent people who've got something worth saying.

Ooh, and if you feel like doing a guest post, write to me and let's do it!

Three Cheers for ACT3!!!!

With my editor's permission, I reworked an article for my kids' newspaper into a story for The Online Citizen, paying tribute to Singapore's first professional theatre group on their 25th anniversary. (Hint: it's not TheatreWorks.)

Going clockwise from the top, that's Jasmin Sumaat Simon, Ruby Lim-Yang and Rama Chandran, from their first publicity photo in 1981. (Wah lau, they're old.)

Click here.

THE PATRIARCH ALWAYS PAYS

... is the title of the commedia dell'arte inspired play that I've devised with four other writer/performers as part of the DramaBox Blanc Space collaborative playwriting programme, under the guidance of American playwright Joan Holden.



It's a makeshift presentation using texts we wrote over the weekend, so it won't be stellar, but it'll be fun. It's a comedy set in old Suzhou about organ transplants! I play the faithful servant Ah Lek, based on Arlecchino.

Details are:

Sat 8 August, 4pm
The Hall @ The Arts House (i.e. the small building with the Vietnamese restaurant, next to the Arts House proper)
Price: FREE

The writers/performers are:

Chris Lee
Verena Tay
Peggy Ferroa
Jacklyn Kuah
Ng Yi-Sheng

Poet X Poet X Photos!


That's me squirming while Prof Lee read my early adolescent juvenilia. I eventually retaliated by performing "Prospect of a Drowning" in Singlish.

Ooh, did I mention we had an audience?


They stuck around for two hours - some of them standing! - while we gabbed about each other's poetry (with brief anecdotal excursions about our personal lives, and those of others, for which I sincerely apologise). Very good response, according to Kenny: someone said it was the best Singapore lit event s/he'd been to in a long time.


This was thanks in no small part to our moderator, Gwee Li Sui. (Edwin Thumboo also interjected a fair number of times. He's being hidden by the stack of plastic cups.)

And really, it was a gorgeous place to have the event:


Photos courtesy of Alvin Pang.

While we're at it, why not some photos from the Life! Theatre Awards? Here's Wong Chee Wai/Ng Tze Wei getting his Best Set Design for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles".



And here's the crowd: (from left to right: Brian Gothong Tan, members of ZingO Drum Group, Fran Borgia, Elizabeth Tan, K Rajagopal):


And our (unnervingly precocious) entertainment:


Now that they've scaled it back to a nominees-only ceremony, it's unlikely that I'll be invited back next year. Ah well, I've decided to concentrate on books rather than drama this year, and there's a price for every venture. (More on that in a later post.)

Now to file my taxes.

I didn't win anything at the Life! Theatre Awards...

...but I got to pick up the trophy for Ka Fai who got Best Multimedia for Reservoir.


He's in the UK filming stuff for Diaspora (TheatreWorks people never attend the thing anywayz), so I went up, talked about what a great guy he is to work with and that he should be recognised as a director as well as as a multimediator, and then exhorted everyone to watch his upcoming Revolution Per Minute (23 to 25 April).

Ng Tze Wei got Best Set Design for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles"! And he deserves it. Seriously, that man can spin straw into gold.

Life! Theatre Awards Nominations 2009

I've been nominated for Best Script for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles"!



It's also got noms for Best actor (Rehaan Engineer), Best set (Ng Tze Wei) and best costume (Moe Kasim, with later modifications by directors Christina Sergeant and Ivan Heng). "Reservoir" is also nominated for Production of the Year and Best Sound Design (Chong Li-Chuan) and Best Multimedia (Choy Ka Fai).

This time I'm sure I won't get the award myself: hot favourites for both Best Script and Best Production are the fabulous "Gemuk Girls" and "Temple". We might win some technical stuff, though.

The article came out on Sat 19 March, when I was in Italy; that's why I didn't know the news was released yet. (I knew about the noms ages ago, though.)

Here's the full list for your perusal, with productions I was involved in italicised. Prize presentation ceremony on Monday.

Production of the Year:

* Gemuk Girls (The Necessary Stage)
* House of Sins (Dramabox)
* Reservoir (Theatreworks)
* Temple (Cake)
* The King Lear Trilogy (Ho Tzu Nyen)

Best Director:

* Natalie Hennedige (Temple)
* Li Xie (House of Sins)
* Christina Sergeant (The Hypochondriac)
* Alvin Tan (Gemuk Girls)
* Wong May Lan (The Soldier & His Virtuous Wife)

Best Script:

* Natalie Hennedige (Temple)
* Li Xie (House of Sins)
* Ng Yi-Sheng (The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles)
* Jean Tay (Boom)
* Haresh Sharma (Gemuk Girls)

Best Actor:

* Rehaan Engineer (The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles)
* Najib Soiman (Gemuk Girls)
* Noor Effendy Ibrahim (National Language Class)
* Peter Sau (House of Sins)
* Tay Kong Hui (House of Sins)

Best Supporting Actor:

* Oliver Chong (Flare)
* Najib Soiman (Temple)
* K. Rajagopal (The King Lear Project)
* Darius Tan (The Soldier & His Virtuous Wife)
* Sebastian Tan (Snow White & The Seven Dwarves)

Best Actress:

* Fanny Kee (Boom)
* Jo Kwek (Moon Story)
* Noorlinah Mohamed (Gemuk Girls)
* Yeo Yann Yann (National Language Class)

Best Supporting Actress:

* Goh Guat Xian (Flare)
* Li Xie (Temple)
* Judy Ngo (The Vagina Monologues)
* Susan Tordoff (The Office Party)
* Emma Yong (Shanghai Blues)

Best Ensemble:

* Bilik Ahmad (Teater Ekamatra)
* Drift (Dramabox)
* First Light (Toy Factory)
* Own Time Own Target (Wild Rice)
* The Hypochondriac (young & Wild)

Best Sound Design:

* Bang Wenfu (The Hypochondriac)
* Chong Li-Chuan (Reservoir)
* Philip Tan (Temple)
* Zing O Drum Group (Death of a Hero)
* Zizi Azah (Above us only sky)

Best Lighting Design:

* Fita Helmi (Above us only sky)
* Andy Lim (House of Sins)
* Lim Woan Wen (Pinocchio’s Complex)
* Suven Chan (Temple)
* Yo Shao Ann (Shanghai Blues)

Best Multimedia Design:

* Choy Ka Fai (Reservoir)
* Loo Zihan (Gemuk Girls)
* Brian Gothong Tan (Temple)
* Tan Kai Syng (The Vagina Monologues)

Best Set Design:

* Eucien Chia (Shanghai Blues)
* Claudio Girardi (Das Experiment)
* Wong Chee Wai (House of Sins, Apocalypse Live!, The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles)

Best Costume Design:

* Moe Kasim (Beauty World, The Enchantment of Sangkuriang, The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves)
* Natalie Hennedige (Temple)

'Life Styles: Theatre and Biography Across Cultures'

I'm speaking at this Symposium at the National Museum on Friday afternoon!

Turns out we're getting a bigger space, so space won't be as limited as I thought. Thus I can advertise this with impunity.