Veteran journalist and actor Koh Boon Pin converses with Singaporean playwright, poet and artist Desmond Sim about his play-writing journey and the juggling between his business consultancy and his artistic pursuits. They zoom through Desmond’s extensive list of creative works – plays, paintings, poetry – over the last three decades. The 70-minute Living Room Chat has been repackaged into a 3-part video recording.
On 17 April, playwright, artist and poet Desmond Sim discusses his body of work and offers insights on the confluence of writing, branding and marketing.
This session follows from the first conversation with activist, controversial playwright and scholar Russell Heng about his work in rejuvenating civil society on the stage and beyond.
EVENT DETAILS
Friday, 17 April 2015
8pm @ Centre 42 Black Box
Admission for both evenings are free, by registration.
KOH BOON PIN
Award-winning journalist Koh Boon Pin has worked front- and back-end in newspapers, magazines, television and radio. He has, over 20 years, interviewed a broad spectrum of movers and shakers in the arts, sciences, as well as business, military and political spheres.
Audiences, both local and international, have also noted another side of him as thespian in productions such as Metamorphosis (TheatreWorks, 1989), The Dance and The Railroad (TheatreWorks, 1990), Private Parts (TheatreWorks, 1992), Six of the Best (TheatreWorks, 1996), The First Emperor’s Last Days (TheatreWorks, 1998), The Magic Fundoshi (Wild Rice, 2006), Diaspora (TheatreWorks, 2006 and 2009).
DESMOND SIM
“I enjoy people doing my pieces because I read somewhere that theatre and storytelling are like little smoke signals that you let up there. And anyone who sees it, who recognises it, who loves it; they send smoke signals back. And somehow you feel less lonely for being here, and I’ve always felt like that’s my way of connecting with people.”
~ Desmond Sim, extracted from interview for Postcards from Rosa (Source: The Backstage Life Ep 35: Postcards from Rosa, 2 July 2013)
A veteran in the local theatre scene, Desmond was TheatreWork’s first playwright-in-residence (1991) and had helped set up the company’s Writer’s Laboratory (1990). He then went on to become the associate artistic director of Action Theatre (since 2004) and ran its incubator programme for new and existing Singaporean playwrights, Theatre Oasis. Beyond writing for the stage and film, Desmond is also an accomplished painter and has held more than a dozen painting exhibitions on Peranakan figurative themes. He currently owns and runs a consultant company Desmond Sim & Co. Pte Ltd.
Desmond has, to date, written over 30 plays, almost all of which have been performed in professional theatres in Singapore and abroad. An extract of the text from one of his plays Autumn Tomyam: “I had a dream also – of flying out somewhere else and having the choice to live the life I truly wanted. But I was trapped… by fear, I was too afraid.”
Autumn Tomyam is one of three plays in the dramatised reading “Gender and Sexuality – selected works” directed by Jeremiah Choy and presented by Esplanade’s The Studios: fifty.
Part 1: How to Win at Writing
The conversation opens with Desmond talking about the multiple scholarships and writing competitions he had won in his youth, and sharing important tips on how to write for the stage. Desmond also shares his experience being the first Writer-in-Residence at TheatreWork’s Writer’s Lab. The works discussed in this video are Old Woman’s Dying, Old Woman’s Dead (1989), Red Man, Green Man (1990), Storyteller (1990), Places Where I’ve Been (1993), and Drunken Prawns(1993).
Part 2: Writing About Love and Life
In this jam-packed second part, Boon Pin and Desmond discuss some of the playwright’s most popular works. To Desmond, his plays often attempt to explore the universal theme of love and/or to show a different perspective on life, even if these aims may sometimes be couched in frivolity. Desmond shares the stories behind the plays Elizabeth by Night (1993), Corporate Animals (1995), Who’s Afraid of Choy Yuen Fatt? (1996), Shrimps in Space (1999), The Swimming Instructor (1999), and Autumn Tomyam (2001), as well as the award-winning film Beautiful Boxer (2003).
Part 3: Creating from Memories
In Part 3, Desmond shares with Boon Pin and the Living Room audience some of the works which drew heavily from memories of his childhood and family. Desmond wrote the monologue Teochew Porridge (1995) as a way of coming to terms with the relationship he had with his late father. In Postcards from Rosa (2007), he drew from stories his Nonya grandmother would tell him as child. Desmond also found inspiration in his family life for his Peranakan-themed paintings. Other works Desmond and Boon Pin discuss in this third part include Jack and the Beansprout (2006), The Wedding Game (2009), the recent stagings in Malaysia, and an upcoming new play called Pintu Pagar. Desmond also comments on the selection of Autumn Tomyam for the Esplanade’s The Studios: fifty dramatized readings on 25 April 2015.
Veteran journalist and actor Koh Boon Pin invites into the Living Room playwright, poet and artist Desmond Sim for an evening of conversations and revelations behind his journey of playwriting.
Source: Centre 42 Facebook
