Video: In the Living Room with Michael Chiang

In the Living Room with Michael Chiang was held in the company of a live audience on 30 October 2014.

This cosy session saw Dr Robin Loon in conversation with Singaporean playwright Michael Chiang, chatting about his play-writing journey, the development of the local theatre scene in the 80s and 90s, and his personal responses to some of the harshest critiques of his work.

The 75-minute Living Room Chat has been repackaged into a 3-part video recording:

Part 1: Dr. Robin Loon gets Michael Chiang to share the stories behind creating the plays which kick-started his prolific play-writing career. The plays talked about in Part 1 include “Beauty Box” (1984), “Love and Belachan” (1985) and “Army Daze” (1987). Along this journey down memory lane, Michael also talks us through how he creates unique characters and his experience of bringing the page to the stage.

Part 2: This segment is all about the play “Private Parts”. In a surprise appearance during the live session, Michael Chiang and Dr. Robin Loon are joined by two special guests, who performed in the inaugural production of “Private Parts” in 1992. This clip comprises key highlights of the “Private Parts” conversation among the Living Room guests, about their shared experiences with creating and staging a controversial work in conservative, early 90s Singapore.

As part of the introduction to this segment on “Private Parts”, a short video clip of the 1992 production by TheatreWorks was shared with audiences. View this clip at: http://youtu.be/gnK8k4sJEEc

Part 3: The conversation moves on to more of Michael’s work, including “Beauty World” (1988), “Heaven II” (1994) and “Mortal Sins” (1995). Dr. Robin Loon gets Michael to talk about how he chooses the subject matter of his plays, as well as his process of creating musicals and revising his plays when they are restaged. Dr. Loon also has Michael responding to charges from his harshest critics over the years.