FROM CITIZENS’ REVIEWS:

Christian W. Huber
Christian is a C42 Boiler Room 2016 playwright, and enjoys being an audience member to different mediums of the arts. He finds arts invigorating to the soul, and truly believes that the vibrant arts scene has come a long way from its humble beginnings.

Cordelia Lee
Cordelia is a final-year Theatre Studies major trapped in a full-time relationship with the National University of Singapore. Whenever the opportunity arises, she purchases discounted tickets, slips into the theatre and savours every moment of her temporarily bought freedom. She prefers performances that run no longer than two hours, and is always in the mood for innovative directorial choices – the less she sees them coming, the better. Outside of theatre, she routinely tortures her obliques in the gym and sings to ’90s hits in the shower.

Isaac Tan
Isaac graduated from the National University of Singapore with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, and he took Theatre Studies as a second major. He started reviewing plays for the student publication, Kent Ridge Common, and later developed a serious interest in theatre criticism after taking a module at university. He is also an aspiring poet and his poems have appeared in Symbal, Eunoia Review, Eastlit, and Malaise Journal.

Jocelyn Chng
Jocelyn is a freelance educator, practitioner and writer in dance and theatre, and has written for various platforms since 2013, including The Flying Inkpot and Arts Equator. She holds a double Masters in Theatre Studies/Research, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Dance Teaching). At the heart of her practice, both teaching and personal, lies a curiosity about personal and cultural histories; writing about performance allows her to engage with this curiosity. She sees performance criticism as crucial to the development of the performance landscape in Singapore, and a valuable opportunity to contribute to ongoing discussions about performance and society.

Lee Shu Yu
Shu Yu is a currently pursuing a degree in Theatre Studies at the National University of Singapore and loves exploring all that has to do with the arts. Her latest foray into reviewing stems from a desire to support the vibrant ecology of the arts in Singapore.

Liana Gurung
With a Literature major’s love and propensity for over-analysing, Liana is a mostly-reader, sometimes-writer who was raised on a diet of musicals (read: Julie Andrews). Her attention has since turned to the gritty, innovative and often subversive world of the Singaporean play: the leaner, the tauter, the more spare – the better.

FROM ARTSEQUATOR.COM:

Akanksha Raja
Akanksha is an arts writer from Singapore. She has been writing reviews on theatre (and occasionally visual art) as part of the editorial team at ArtsEquator.com since its launch in 2016, and is an alumnae of the Points of View Performance Writing workshop organised by the Asian Dramaturgs’ Network in 2018.

Naeem Kapadia
Naeem is a finance lawyer and passionate advocate of the arts. He has acted in and directed student drama productions in both London and Singapore. He has been writing about theatre for over a decade on his personal blog Crystalwords and has contributed reviews and podcasts to publications such as London student newspaper The Beaver, Singapore daily newspaper TODAY and arts journals The Flying Inkpot and ArtsEquator. Naeem enjoys cooking, running and travel.

Patricia Tobin
Patricia Tobin is Singaporean theatre critic. Her reviews can be found on ArtsEquator and on her blog, havesomepatty.com. She currently works in media.

FROM CITIZENS’ REVIEWS:

Casidhe Ng
Casidhe is currently serving his national service,  having just graduated from the School of the Arts, Singapore. He enjoys reading and writing, and believes that theatre reviewing is an excellent motivator for artistic improvement when done right. Aside from writing, his true passion is for the stage and enjoys acting, designing and occasional dramaturgy.

Christian W. Huber
Christian has been away from the theatre scene for over ten years as he focused his time in running and managing the family business of Boncafé International Pte Ltd – A Pioneering Gourmet Coffee Roasting and Manufacturing Company in Singapore. Christian stepped down from the company earlier this year to pursue his other interests and to spend time with his family of four. He continues to look after another family business, as well as to pursue his renewed interest in the arts.

Christian is a C42 Boiler Room 2016 playwright, and enjoys being an audience member to different mediums of the arts. He finds arts invigorating to the soul, and truly believes that the vibrant arts scene has come a long way from its humble beginnings. He looks forward to appreciating, experiencing, and exploring more of it as a Citizen Reviewer!

Cordelia Lee
Cordelia is a second-year Theatre Studies and English Linguistics double major, who is currently trapped in a full-time relationship with the National University of Singapore. When life with NUS gets too overwhelming, she purchases student-discounted tickets to local plays, slips into the theatre, and savours every moment of her temporarily bought freedom.

She views the theatre as a liminal space providing far more than simply entertainment. It is there where inspiration strikes, where beliefs are challenged and discussions are sparked. While she appreciates a wide range of theatrical styles, she admits to being especially intrigued by avant-garde performances. Often, the more perplexing and thought-provoking they are, the better.

Outside of university and the theatre, she finds herself spinning to Spanish music on the salsa dance floor, torturing her obliques in the gym, and routinely singing to ’90s hits in the shower.

Isaac Tan
Isaac graduated from the National University of Singapore with a BA (Hons) in Philosophy, and he took Theatre Studies as a second major. He started reviewing plays for the student publication, Kent Ridge Common, and later developed a serious interest in theatre criticism after taking a module at university. He is also an aspiring poet and his poems have appeared in Symbal, Eunoia Review, Eastlit, and Malaise Journal.

To top it off, he is equally passionate in acting and flamenco dancing, and hopes to pursue all his passions in equal measure. He blogs infrequently at pre-lude.blogspot.com, while his portfolio and other reviews can be found at www.isaactanbr.com.

Jocelyn Chng
Jocelyn holds a double Masters in Theatre Studies/Research. She is a founding member of the Song and Dance (SoDa) Players – a registered musical theatre society in Singapore. She is currently building her portfolio career as an educator and practitioner in dance and theatre, while pursuing an MA in Education (Dance Teaching).

Myle Yan Tay
Yan is currently studying in Yale-NUS College, where he enjoys spending his free time in far too many productions. Having tried acting, writing, and directing for the stage, Yan looks forward to reviewing. He believes that theatre should challenge both the audience and creators. Theatre, to him, is about constantly pushing the boundaries of what the medium can do while telling a compelling story.

FROM ARTS EQUATOR:
Kathy Rowland (Managing Editor)
Kathy Rowland, as is glaringly obvious from her name, is from Malaysia. A chance encounter with a commedia dell arte troupe in her teens led to a career in the arts (also, lifetime penury).  Since 2011, Kathy has lived in Singapore, where she teaches part-time at LASALLE College of the Arts. She is a writer, editor and producer. Her articles on the politics of culture have appeared in publications in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the US and South Korea. Kathy edited and introduced  Staging History: Selected Plays from Five Arts Centre 1984 – 2014 (2015), Huzir Sulaiman: Collected Plays 1998 – 2012 (2013) and Krishen Jit: An Uncommon Position, Selected Writings (2003). Kathy has produced theatre and visual arts events in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, New York, Australia and Thailand.  She is part of the Asia Europe Foundation’s ASEAN Researchers’ program, Regionally Speaking (2016-2017) led by Prof Dr Ruth Bereson of Griffith University and is the Lead Researcher in a theatre archive project run by Five Arts Centre Malaysia.

Biography taken from Arts Equator

The last Centre 42 event of 2017, “In the Living Room: Year in Reviews” was held on 14 December 2017. Six of the Centre’s Citizen Reviewers and Kathy Rowland from ArtsEquator were invited to look back and share their opinions on the local theatre productions they watched this year. The session, which was moderated by Citizens’ Reviews’ chief editor Robin Loon, was divided into six sections: 2017 as the year of the musical; The Necessary Stage’s 30th anniversary season; productions by smaller collectives; the most disappointing and exciting shows the panellists watched this year; and what they’re looking forward to most in 2018. Photos: Daniel Teo

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Elizabeth de Roza is an artist-researcher/educator, performance maker, theatre director, a multi-disciplinary performance artist, collaborator and theatre academic based in Singapore. She worked with ATRC from 1996 till the passing of William Teo’s and credits her first influence on intercultural theatre to William Teo. She is currently pursuing her PhD at Goldsmiths University on the embodied cultural memory and the contemporary body in cross-cultural performance practices. She is also a full-time lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts, School of Dance and Theatre, and in and a co-convenor of the Embodied Research Working Group at IFTR. 

Jeremiah Choy left the law for the arts in 1997. He founded Orangedot Productions which provides creative consultancy, curatorial and production services in the arts and entertainment industry. Since 1988, he has performed and toured extensively in many critically acclaimed productions with TheatreWorks. Jeremiah first worked with William Teo in the production of The Sword Has Two Edges (1990), and subsequently assisted directed Listen To The Dolor of Dolores (1991). He then performed The Conference of the Birds (1991) at the disused warehouse where SRT now stands, and the groundbreaking monologue Lest The Demons Get To Me (1992). He was a musician in The Tragedy of Macbeth (1993), and played the leads in The Dragon King (1994) and The Painted House (2000).

Lok Meng Chue has been a stage actress for more than 30 years. She was most recently on stage as Habiba in Nine Years Theatre’s production of Fundamentally Happy for the 2017 season of Esplanade’s The Studios. Meng Chue also acted on television and in films. She first worked with ATRC on its very first production, The House of Bernarda Alba, in 1987, as well as the groundbreaking productions Medea (1988) and Mother Courage and Her Children (1989) which were staged outdoors in Fort Canning Park.

Neo Kim Seng is a cross-disciplinary practitioner and has been involved in independent and large-scale projects in Singapore and overseas in different capacities. He has programmed for Esplanade – Theatres On The Bay, Singapore International Film Festival, Singapore Arts Festival and managed productions for major theatre companies and independent artists. He has produced and toured independent dance works to Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Canada. Recently, he has begun creating his own work. Kim Seng used the work with ATRC in the capacity of a stage manager. He also designed some of the company’s programmes booklets.

Asia-in-Theatre Research Circus (ATRC) was founded by the late William Teo in 1987. To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the theatre company’s establishment, we invited past ATRC collaborators Elizabeth De Roza, Jeremiah Choy, Lok Meng Chue, and Neo Kim Seng to share their experiences with Robin Loon in this edition of the Living Room. Held on 29th July 2017, the event was also attended by many theatre practitioners who knew and were inspired by William. Photo credit: Daniel Teo & Gwen Pew.

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Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit graduated with a degree in Drama from Queensland University of Technology. Aidli writes, directs, acts, teaches, and designs lighting and costume. She has worked with local theatre companies like The Necessary Stage, W!ld Rice, Teater Ekamatra, and Drama Box. Together with Noor Effendy Ibrahim and Alfian Sa’at, Aidli published an anthology of Malay plays in BISIK. Aidli is the Founder and Director of Panggung ARTS and she is the recipient of the Young Artist Award for Theatre in 2008. Aidli is currently working in Temasek Polytechnic while pursuing her Master of Education.

Nelson Chia is an actor, director and theatre educator. Trained in the Suzuki Method, he has performed on the Singapore stage for over two decades in both English and Mandarin productions. Nelson holds an MA in Directing from Goldsmiths College and has directed over 25 major productions. He is best known for his translation, adaptation and direction of old and contemporary classics in Mandarin. Nelson previously headed the Department of Theatre at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and lectured at LASALLE College of the Arts and the Theatre Studies Programme at the National University of Singapore. In 2012, Nelson co-founded Nine Years Theatre (NYT) with his wife Mia Chee. NYT strives to raise the profile of Mandarin theatre among Singapore audiences. In 2013, Nelson created the NYT Ensemble, a first of its kind in Singapore, to have a group of actors who train and create work together over an extended period of time.

Wong Chee Meng is an independent researcher and theatre reviewer with particular interest in intercultural theatre. He has previously worked as a translator, a bilingual journalist and an arts manager in the performing arts. Apart from a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and Chinese studies from the National University of Singapore, he holds a Masters and a PhD degree in heritage studies from the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus in Germany. His doctoral thesis was on performance and intercultural dialogue. He has lectured in Chinese film studies as a postdoctoral fellow in literary and cultural studies with the Nanyang Technological University.

Moderator:

Shawn Chua is a researcher at The Necessary Stage. He holds an MA in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and is a recipient of the National Arts Council’s Art Scholarship (Postgraduate).

On 5th April 2017, we held a Living Room session in conjunction with the Esplanade Presents: The Studios 2017 series. This Living Room conversation spotlights HARESH SHARMA’s “Fundamentally Happy”, both the original 2006 staging and the 2017 Mandarin adaptation by 九年剧场 Nine Years Theatre. Hosted by The Necessary Stage’s researcher Shawn Chua Ming Ren, the discussion on language and cultural contexts tapped into the memories and experiences of actress Aidli Mosbit (who played the character Habiba in 2006 and 2007), director Nelson Chia (who directed and translated the recent Mandarin production), independent theatre researcher Dr. Wong Chee Meng (who had watched both versions and wrote about the earlier staging).

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Juliana Lim
Juliana started her career in the Singapore Government Administrative Service in 1973. Since then, she has had over 30 years’ experience working in Government and Government-linked organisations, including 17 years in arts management positions and 18 years in arts, sports, charity and community grant-making positions. Some of her notable cultural policy-related projects include the formulation of several arts assistance and arts granting schemes including the Arts Housing Scheme and the Theatre-in-Residency Scheme, the development of The Esplanade: Theatres on the Bay, and the devising of the Heritage Link Project which resulted in the conservation of heritage buildings into several museums. Today, she continues to have an active interest in the arts and volunteers for various arts projects. As current President of the Richard Wagner Association (Singapore), she was most recently involved in the production of The Flying Dutchman (2016), the first Wagnerian opera to be produced and staged in Singapore.

Hoe Su Fern
Su Fern is Assistant Professor and Assistant Program Lead of the Arts and Culture Management Program at SMU. She holds a PhD in Culture and Communication from The University of Melbourne. Her current research areas include arts and cultural policy studies, urban cultural economies, arts spaces and creative placemaking.  She is exploring diverse ways to pursue practice-oriented and engaged research on the arts, and is also passionate about catalysing robust and collegiate discourse on issues related to the arts and culture in Singapore.  Recent projects include principal investigator for “Breaking Ground: The Impact of the Arts Housing Policy on Arts Development in Singapore: 1985 – 2015”, researcher for The Co-Op Experiment by The Substation, convenor-producer of the Singapore Biennale 2016 Symposium, and researcher for Between the Lines: Rant & Rave II, a verbatim theatre on the evolution of Singapore’s literary scene.  Prior to her current position, she held appointments at The Institute of Policy Studies, the Ministry of Communications and Information, and the Supreme Court.

ACM301 Cultural Policy
ACM301 is a new course offered by Assistant Professor Hoe Su Fern as part of SMU’s Arts and Culture Management Program, with almost 40 students for the 2017 intake. For their final assignment, they are required to work in groups to produce an investigative project on the role, evolution and influence of some of the policies that Juliana Lim has been involved in. Questions that they have been exploring include: what is the relationship between the state, arts and society? How does cultural policy translate into, and impact practice? What are the origins, functions and limitations of some of the existing cultural policies in Singapore? For most of them, this will be the first assignment with a public-facing component and they have been working extremely hard to fulfil the assignment components, which include conducting live interviews, sourcing and piecing together archival research, and exhibition design.  They are also grateful to Centre 42 for the kind opportunity and look forward to meeting everyone on 30 March!

Part 1: In the Living Room with Juliana Lim

Juliana and the students discuss the early years of cultural policy formulation and implementation in Singapore, with focus on three areas: Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, the Arts Housing Scheme and the Grants Scheme.

Part 2: In the Living Room with Juliana Lim

Juliana and the students field questions from the audience.

The first Living Room of 2017 was a spotlight on veteran arts manager Juliana Lim. In this session held on 30 April 2017, she chatted with students from the SMU School of Social Sciences’ ACM301 Cultural Policy and Practice class. Divided into three main groups and under the guidance of assistant professor Sufern Hoe, the students discussed topics including the Arts Housing Scheme, the Grants Scheme, and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay with Juliana. They also put together an exhibition about arts policy in Singapore, which will be on show at our Rehearsal Studio until 5 April. Here’s a quick look at what took place that night! Photo credits: Daniel Teo, Gwen Pew, Akshay Pundareekakshan Sampath.

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Alfian Sa’at is well-known for frank, insightful, and provocative literary and dramatic works, written in English and Malay. As the Resident Playwright of W!ld Rice, he has written acclaimed plays such as the Asian Boys trilogy (2000, 2004, 2007), Cooling-Off Day (2011), and the historical epic Hotel (2015, co-writer). Alfian is also an author with published collections of short stories and poems. He is a four-time winner of Best Original Script at the annual M1-The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards and a 2001 recipient of the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award for Literature.

Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit graduated with a degree in Drama from Queensland University of Technology. Aidli writes, directs, acts, teaches, and designs lighting and costume. She has worked with local theatre companies like The Necessary Stage, W!ld Rice, Teater Ekamatra, and Drama Box. Together with Noor Effendy Ibrahim and Alfian Sa’at, Aidli published an anthology of Malay plays in BISIK. Aidli is the Founder and Director of Panggung ARTS and she is the recipient of the Young Artist Award for Theatre in 2008. Aidli is currently working in Temasek Polytechnic while pursuing her Master of Education.

Irfan Kasban is a freelance theatre maker who writes, directs, designs and, at times, performs. The former Associate Artistic Director of Teater Ekamatra attended the prestigious La MaMa Umbria International Symposium for Directors 2012, and have written and directed several works. These include Hantaran Buat Mangsa Lupa (M1 Fringe Festival 2012), 94:05 (Kakiseni Festival 2013), ANA (Projek Suitcase 2015), and Trees a Crowd (Twenty Something Festival 2016). Last year Irfan’s play TAHAN (2012), was selected for Esplanade’s Fifty – a celebration of Singapore’s seminal works.

Nabilah Said discovered the world of theatre in 2010. She is currently in Boiler Room, a programme for playwrights by Centre 42, and is this year’s resident artist for contemporary Malay theatre company Teater Ekamatra. She presented the short plays Tart (2015), Next Station (2014) and Lost (2012) as part of Teater Ekamatra’s playwright mentorship programme after undergoing a year’s training in its youth wing, Mereka. She is an arts and lifestyle journalist with The Straits Times, and also a freelance writer, editor and poet with works published in anthologies by Math Paper Press.

Nessa Anwar has written, acted, produced and directed for theatre, television, digital content and short films. Currently a multimedia journalist by day, she believes wholeheartedly in the content she creates. Nessa began acting first, under companies like Singapore Repertory Theatre’s Young Company and Teater Ekamatra. Nessa also wrote and acted in a play commissioned for a Singapore Writer’s Festival Checkpoint Theatre 2015 event entitled Riders Know When It’s Going to Rain, which was restaged for the 2016 Singapore Theatre Festival under W!ld Rice.

Part 1: Alfian Sa’at in the Living Room: New Directions in Malay Theatre

Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit, Irfan Kasban, Nabilah Said and Nessa Anwar each shares his or her personal history in Malay Theatre, collectively constructing a ground-up account of Malay Theatre history.

Part 2: Alfian Sa’at in the Living Room: New Directions in Malay Theatre

The playwrights discuss several important topics in Malay Theatre, as well as field questions from the audience.

In a Living Room session on 24 Nov 2016, Alfian Sa’at sat down with fellow playwrights Aidli ‘Alin’ Mosbit, Irfan Kasban, Nabilah Said and Nessa Anwar to discuss the state of Malay Theatre in Singapore and where it is heading to. The group tackled questions such as: What makes a play a “Malay” play? Are you more comfortable writing in Malay or English? Do you feel pressure to portray the Malay community in a certain way? Are you writing for a Malay audience? What is the future of Malay Theatre? etc. Photo Credit: Lu Yixin

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Part 1: Corrie Tan In the Living Room with Alfian Sa’at

Corrie gets Alfian to talk about his childhood as a “Mendaki kid”, singled out for his strong academic performance. The pair then move on to Alfian’s mentorship under The Necessary Stage’s Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma, and how it actually spurred him to move away from English play-writing towards poetry, short stories and Malay plays, all in a bid to differentiate himself from his prolific mentor. Corrie also brings up Alfian’s shortlived career as a theatre reviewer for the Straits Times.

Part 2: Corrie Tan In the Living Room with Alfian Sa’at

Alfian and Corrie talk about censorship in the arts; telling alternative histories; verbatim theatre; developing memorable characters; intertextuality; and using social media as a public platform for discourse. Plays mentioned include “sex.violence.blood.gore” (1999), “Asian Boys Vol. 1: Dreamplay” (2000), “Asian Boys Vol. 3: Happy Endings”, “Cooling-Off Day” (2011), “To Cook a Pot of Curry” (2013), “Hotel” (2015), and “GRC” (2015).

Part 3: Corrie Tan In the Living Room with Alfian Sa’at

Alfian fields questions from the audience.

Often referred to as Singapore’s enfant terrible, playwright and poet Alfian Sa’at is well known for both his wicked sense of humour and his razor sharp social commentary. In this edition of our Living Room programme, we invited former Straits Times arts writer Corrie Tan to have a dialogue with him about his life and works. We’ll be uploading the full video recording of the session soon, so watch this space! Photo credit: Sharmaine Goh

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Tan Tarn How (1960-) has, at various points in his life, been a teacher, a journalist, a scriptwriter and a research fellow. However, he is best known as one of Singapore’s landmark playwrights with his bold, award-winning works which have certainly pushed boundaries over the years.

Read more about Tan’s life through the plays he penned and some selected milestones.

Part 1: In the Living Room with Tan Tarn How

Robin introduces Tarn How and dives into his most recent play, “Fear of Writing” (2011). The two discuss the play’s links to Alan Bennett’s “Talking Heads” series, a prophetic line from the play, and the capacity of theatre for social change.

Part 2: In the Living Room with Tan Tarn How

Robin chats with Tarn How about his plays “Machine” (2002), “The First Emperor’s Last Days” (1998), and “Six of the Best”(1996). The two discuss topics such as the Pinteresque, working with Ong Keng Sen, and theatre as artistic response to social issues. Tarn How also addresses audience members’ questions about the content produced by today’s playwrights, and the commercial viability of a theatre production versus its artistic merit.

Part 3: In the Living Room with Tan Tarn How

This part features Tarn How’s “Undercover” (1994), which Robin believes is his best play, and “The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate ‘S’ Machine” (1993), Tarn How’s most famous play. The two talk about satire, English and Singlish in Singapore plays, challenging audiences, and censorship and regulation in Singapore theatre. Tarn How reads from his entries in The Diary of Censorship, which is appended to the published text of “The Lady of Soul” and documents his experiences with the regulatory authorities when staging the play for the first time.

Part 4: In the Living Room with Tan Tarn How

Robin has Tarn How talking about his first attempts at play-writing. Tarn How wrote “Home” (1993) during his stint at TheatreWork’s Writers’ Lab, which the two former participants discuss. They also talk about the landscape of play-writing and theatre in the early 1990s. Robin ends off this journey through Tarn How’s works with his earliest successes — “Two Men, Three Struggles” (1987) and “In Praise of the Dentist” (1986, co-written with his wife), award-winning submissions to the NUS-Shell Short Play Competition. During the audience Q&A, the discussion returns to differences between the generations of Singaporean playwrights.

Dr Robin Loon invites into the Living Room Singaporean playwright Tan Tarn How to chat, chart and reflect on his play-writing journey through a selection of his works. In a span of two decades, Tarn How has written nine plays, several of which have won numerous awards. Collectively, his work examines the socio-political environment and machinations of the Singapore state. On this evening, they talked about the relevance of writing for the stage now, and about several of his plays, including his very first In Praise of Dentist (1986) and his most recent Fear of Writing (2011). Photo credit: Tim Nga

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