Video: Koh Boon Pin in the Living Room with Desmond Sim

StudioAMK — Mon, 04 May 2015 02:44:20 +0000

In the Living Room with Koh Boon Pin and Desmond Sim was held in the company of a live audience on 17 April 2015.

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:

Part 1: 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: 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: 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.

The Press preview for Postcards from Rosa (2013) played during the session can be viewed here.

The Living Room is a programme by Centre 42 that welcomes chat and conversation. Through focused but casual dialogues and face-to-face exchanges, this programme encourages participants to re-examine trends, happenings, people (on & off-stage) and phenomena in Singapore theatre.

Find out more about the Living Room programme here.

Video: Koh Boon Pin in the Living Room with Russell Heng

StudioAMK — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 22:40:46 +0000

In the Living Room with Koh Boon Pin and Russell Heng was held in the company of a live audience on 10 April 2015.

This cosy session, hosted by veteran journalist and actor Koh Boon Pin, was a conversation with Singaporean playwright and activist Russell Heng about his play-writing journey. Russell’s careers and transitions influenced the content and context of the three plays he wrote.

The 65-minute Living Room Chat has been repackaged into a 3-part video recording:

Part 1: Koh Boon Pin begins his conversation with Russell Heng by getting him to talk about the early years of his life. Russell shares memories of his formative years, from his childhood to his university years to his first jobs as a civil servant and a journalist. These were the experiences which later shaped his play-writing. Russell credits the university years in New Zealand for his sense of activism.

Part 2: The chat continues with Russell discussing his first play, Lest the Demons Get to Me (written in 1987) and the controversy it stirred when it was first staged by TheatreWorks in 1992. Boon Pin, who performed in the play’s first reading (1991), also shares his memories of playing the lead character K.C. The conversation then turned to Russell’s years in gay advocacy group P.L.U. (People Like Us).

Part 3: This segment focused on Russell’s more recent plays — Half Century (written in 1994) and Comrade Mayor (written in 2002). Russell shares with Boon Pin the difficulties faced in getting his contentious plays from page to stage. To end off the conversation, Russell shares a clip from his favourite Teochew opera which inspires him to write courageously about social injustices.

As an introduction of the above plays, production footages of Half Century and Comrade Mayor were kindly provided by TheatreWorks (S) Limited for the Living Room. If you would like to view the archival footage, please email tworks@singnet.com.sg.

The Living Room is a programme by Centre 42 that welcomes chat and conversation. Through focused but casual dialogues and face-to-face exchanges, this programme encourages participants to re-examine trends, happenings, people (on & off-stage) and phenomena in Singapore theatre.

Centre 42 » Koh Boon Pin

Video: Koh Boon Pin in the Living Room with Desmond Sim

The Living Room is a programme by Centre 42 that welcomes chat and conversation. Through focused but casual dialogues and face-to-face exchanges, this programme encourages participants to re-examine trends, happenings, people (on & off-stage) and phenomena in Singapore theatre.

Find out more about the Living Room programme here.

Video: Koh Boon Pin in the Living Room with Russell Heng

The Living Room is a programme by Centre 42 that welcomes chat and conversation. Through focused but casual dialogues and face-to-face exchanges, this programme encourages participants to re-examine trends, happenings, people (on & off-stage) and phenomena in Singapore theatre.

Find out more about the Living Room programme here.