TheatreWorks

TheatreWorks is Singapore’s flagship English language theatre company formed in 1985 by theatre practitioners Lim Siauw Chong, Lim Kay Tong and Justin Hill. The company aims to develop and nurture local artists, promote and support Singaporean writing and literature, and create awareness of social issues through its productions and initiatives that fuse Western ideas with Asian culture and traditions. TheatreWorks is the first local arts company to turn professional and the first to showcase its works overseas. To date, the company has staged more than 200 productions and 2,500 performances that have reached out to over a million people locally and abroad.¹

Personalities
Lim Siauw Chong (Founder/Director)
Lim was TheatreWorks’s first artistic director and has directed many outstanding works for the company such as Be My Sushi Tonight and Army Daze. He had his first taste of fame in 1976 when he won the Radio Television Singapura (RTS) Talentime competition as part of a group that included his sister and singer Jacintha Abisheganaden. A graduate of the London International Film School, Lim set up TheatreWorks in 1985 and subsequently left to join the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC, now MediaCorp) as a television producer. He set up WOW International, a theatre and events company, in 1992, and thereafter obtained a diploma in painting from the LASALLE College of the Arts, and a degree in journalism and media studies from Queensland University. He is a member of TheatreWorks’s board of directors.²

Lim Kay Tong (Founder/ Director)
Lim was a journalist with The Straits Times before resigning in 1985 to set up TheatreWorks. He has acted as the lead in many of TheatreWorks’s notable productions such as The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate "S" Machine and Diaspora. He has also appeared in several Singaporean, British and American films and commercials. Lim holds a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in theatre from the University of Hull, United Kingdom. He is a member of TheatreWorks’s board of directors.³

Justin Hill (Founder/Director)
Formerly from Australia, Hill came to Singapore to work as an architect in 1981. He was the set designer for many of TheatreWorks’s productions such as Be My Sushi Tonight, Global Soul, Desdemona and Lear.⁴ Hill was nominated for the Best Set Design award for Global Soul at the 4th Life! Theatre Awards in 2004. He is a member of TheatreWorks’s board of directors.⁵

Ong Keng Sen (Artistic Director)
Ong graduated from the National University of Singapore’s law faculty in 1988 and was invited to join TheatreWorks as its artistic director. He is arguably one of Singapore’s brightest theatrical talents, having received the Singapore Young Artist Award for theatre in 1993 and the Cultural Medallion 10 years later.⁶ For his active efforts in creating and preserving Asian culture, Ong was awarded the prestigious Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize in 2010, the first for an Asian contemporary theatre director and the third Singaporean to achieve this.⁷

Tan Tarn How (Associate Artistic Director)
Tan joined TheatreWorks Singapore as its associate artistic director in 2002. He is a journalist and playwright, whose award-winning works include Fear of Writing, a parable about a playwright’s anxiety regarding writer’s block, and Machine, a dark take on postmodern love. Tan won the Best Original Script award for the former at the 12th Life! Theatre Awards in 2012.⁸

Location
TheatreWorks was initially located at the Fort Canning Centre. The National Arts Council (NAC) then offered the company a space in the Robertson Quay area that was almost twice the size of its former premises. Since September 2005, TheatreWorks has been housed at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road, a versatile space converted from an old rice warehouse that can function as a gallery, cinema, theatre or event venue. It was built at a cost of S$2.9 million under NAC’s Arts Housing Scheme, out of which TheatreWorks contributed S$100,000.⁹

Funding
Originally set up as a private limited company, TheatreWorks changed its status to a non-profit charity in 1990 in order to qualify for arts subsidies. Besides government grants, non-profit arts companies in Singapore also depend on corporate sponsors for funding.¹⁰ Impressed by the quality of TheatreWorks’s productions, private sponsors such as Tang’s Studio, Glaxochem Pte Ltd and Waterford Wedgwood Singapore donated a total amount of S$175,000 to the company in 1989, which was considered a rare move at that time.¹¹ From 1989 to 1995, Tangs Studio and Glaxo Wellcome sponsored TheatreWorks between S$80,000 and S$120,000 annually.¹²

In 1990, one of TheatreWorks’s corporate sponsors unexpectedly withdrew its sponsorship. As a result, the company faced a shortage of S$93,000, which was to be used for renovations of its premises at Fort Canning Park.¹³ To raise funds, TheatreWorks initiated the Be An Angel programme during its Retrospective series in December 1990. More than 200 people responded to its impassionate calls for public donations and contributed S$58,000.¹⁴

Since 2000, TheatreWorks has been receiving funding from the NAC.¹⁵ In recent years, the company was able to fund its own productions by hosting at least two international commissions, such as the Singapore Arts Festival, annually. With self-funding, the company could afford the luxury of producing plays that would appeal to niche audiences instead of the general public.¹⁶ In 2012, TheatreWorks was fortunate to receive a one-year grant of S$200,000 from the NAC’s Major Grant Scheme.¹⁷

Productions
In 2002, the company was restructured into TheatreWorks Singapore and TheatreWorks International to focus on the home-grown and international markets respectively. Tan was appointed the associate artistic director for the former while Ong headed the latter.¹⁸

TheatreWorks has succeeded in raising the bar for local theatre in the creation of ground-breaking productions that reflect artistic excellence and innovation. The company strongly encourages creative partnerships, artistic risk-taking and experimentation in its productions centered on the Asian identity in a globalised, modern world. Known for modernising traditional art forms, its works reflect the hybrid identity of the old and new Asia.¹⁹

Prime examples of such hybrid works include Lear, a Shakespeare-inspired piece set against a backdrop of changing cultural traditions, and Lao Jiu, about the clash between the East and West, and the merging of traditional practices with modernity.²⁰

Lear, a cross-cultural, pan-Asian adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, was commissioned by the Japan Foundation Asia Centre with the objective of promoting Asian theatre and introducing the Japanese to the cultures of other Asian countries. It premiered in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka to rave reviews in 1997 followed by performances in Singapore, Hong Kong, Perth (Australia), Jakarta (Indonesia), Berlin (Germany) and Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1999. The play featured actors from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, China and Japan, who performed in their native languages. Incorporating Asian traditional arts forms such as Japanese Noh theatre, Chinese Beijing opera, Thai dance and Indonesia gamelan, the play was lauded by critics, the audience and other theatre practitioners for its reinvention of traditional arts with a contemporary perspective.²¹

Lao Jiu, written by the late theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun and directed by Ong, played to almost full houses when it performed at the Perth Festival of Arts in 1994. The title, which means “Ninth Child” in Chinese, is about a boy who takes up the dying art of puppetry against his parents’s wishes. Blending various art forms such as Chinese opera, martial arts and traditional Hokkien glove puppetry with Western theatrical techniques, the play was commended by the Sunday Times Australian newspaper for its “stunning visual beauty”.²²

TheatreWorks has made its presence felt internationally as well. Some prominent tours include Michael Chiang’s Beauty World in Japan, Descendents of the Eunuch Admiral in Germany and The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields, which was performed in various cities across the globe.²³

Beauty World was the first production directed by Ong for TheatreWorks in 1988, with music composed by Dick Lee and choreography by Najip Ali.²⁴ Set in the 1960s in a cabaret, it is about a naïve and innocent girl from Batu Pahat, Malaysia, who arrives in Singapore to look for her long-lost father. The musical was performed in four Japanese cities in 1992 at the invitation of the Japan Foundation Asean Culture Centre. In February 1998, the musical was screened live on television for the President’s Star Charity show. It starred many actors from the then Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS, now MediaCorp) such as Gurmit Singh, Jack Neo, Hossan Leong, Sharon Au and Vernetta Lopez. The musical was then staged at the Victoria Theatre in April that same year to celebrate TheatreWorks’s 10th anniversary. Proceeds from the sale of the tickets on its opening night were donated to the President’s Star Charity.²⁵

The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields premiered at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2001 before it was staged at various arts festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, Vienna, Phnom Penh, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Goteborg, Rome, Lyon and Istanbul. Based on Pol Pot's massacre of the royal court dancers in Cambodia, it tells the true story of 75-year-old Em Theay, master dancer of royal classical dance in Cambodia, who survived the massacre and imparted her skills to other dancers.²⁶

TheatreWorks was one of the theatre companies invited to represent Singapore at the 63rd Edinburgh International Festival held in August 2009. The company performed Diaspora, a piece first commissioned for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank group held in Singapore in 2006. Accompanied by live music from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra, the play used five interwoven stories to explore the theme of migration and the effects of globalisation on the people of Southeast Asia. This performance at Edinburgh marked the second time that TheatreWorks had staged a show there; its debut appearance was at the city’s fringe festival 17 years earlier when the company presented Madame Mao’s Memories.²⁷

Collaborations and partnerships
TheatreWorks encourages cultural and artistic collaborations, and exchanges with local and international artists from different disciplines to produce interdisciplinary works.²⁸

The biennial Flying Circus Project (FCP) was conceived by Ong in 1994 with the objective of promoting intercultural understanding and the production of intercultural works. The project brings together artists from different disciplines, cultures, religions, languages and ethnic groups.²⁹ The first FCP in 1996, which involved participants from Japan, Thailand, China and Indonesia, resulted in the creation of Lear. FCP II and FCP III produced Desdemona (artists from India, Myanmar and Korea) in 1998 and The Continuum: Beyond the Killing Fields (artists from Cambodia, Japan and Singapore) in 2000 respectively.³⁰

As a testament to the success of FCP and TheatreWorks’s good reputation, Ong was invited by the House of World Cultures in Berlin, Germany, in June 2002 to curate a new arts festival, In Transit: The Berlin Lab: Transforming The Arts, which adopted the FCP model. Ong became the first Asian and the first Singaporean to curate a European festival.³¹ That same year, Ong also directed artists and designers from 10 different countries in Asia, Europe and Africa for an intercultural play, Search: Hamlet, co-produced by TheatreWorks and Danish company Face-to-Face. It was staged at the Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, and the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark.³²

Another platform that supports artistic collaborations and celebrates cultural diversity is Arts Asia Network (ANA), set up by Ong in 1999. The network was hosted and managed by TheatreWorks Singapore from 1999 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2012. It aims to facilitate collaborations, research, networking and dialogues among Asian artists by giving out grants to projects that encourage exchanges and collaborations within Asia. These projects are multidisciplinary in nature, have artistic merit and impact the larger community.³³

TheatreWorks also hosts the International Centre of Asian Arts (ICAA), a research and development centre, at its premises at Mohamed Sultan Road. The centre facilitates collaborations, research, networking and dialogues across cultures and various disciplines such as music, visual arts, film, design and new media.³⁴

Education and outreach efforts
Locally, TheatreWorks has actively nurtured and cultivated fresh theatre talents through its development programmes such as The Writers’ Laboratory, which was launched in 1990. It is an annual event organised to hone the writing skills of new and emerging playwrights through workshops and mentoring sessions. Under this programme, many outstanding local playwrights such as Desmond Sim, Ovidia Yu and TheatreWorks’s current associate artistic director, Tan Tarn How, have been talent-spotted as winners of the Singapore Young Dramatists Award and the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition. Such initiatives provide an avenue for writers to develop concepts, themes and characterisations from interactions with informed and critical audiences at various stages.³⁵

Since 2008, TheatreWorks has partnered the South East Community Development Council in organising Writers’ Laboratory programmes to reach out to the community through theatre. Winning entries of the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition were performed in the heartlands at various locations such as community centres and public libraries.³⁶

Another initiative that serves as an incubator for emerging creatives is the Singapore Creative Arts Nucleus (SCAN) hosted by TheatreWorks at its premises. Under this programme, international artists who are experts in their respective fields are invited to inspire and mentor local talents, and provide the stimuli necessary to generate new ideas and works.³⁷

Selected performances
1985: Be My Sushi Tonight, debut performance.³⁸
1987: Army Daze, sold out 18 performances.³⁹
1988: Beauty World, the first production directed by Ong Keng Sen.⁴⁰
1992: Madam Mao’s Memories, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.⁴¹
1993: The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate “S” Machine, with R(A) rating.⁴²
1994: Lao Jiu, won rave reviews at the Perth Festival of Arts.⁴³
1996: Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral, a collaboration with Kuo Pao Kun, performed at the 8th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre.⁴⁴
1997: Lear, Tokyo premiere followed by tour of cities in Asia, Europe, and Australia.⁴⁵
2000: Desdemona, premiered at the Singapore Festival of Arts and Adelaide Festival in Australia.⁴⁶
2001: The Silver River, premiered at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston in May 2000.⁴⁷
2002: Search: Hamlet, staged at the Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, Denmark for the Asia-Europe Forum.⁴⁸
2003: The Global Soul: The Buddha Project, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival and supported by the House of World Cultures in Berlin.⁴⁹
2004: Marriage of Inconvenience, written by one of The Writers' Laboratory playwrights, Ng Swee San.⁵⁰
2005: Insomnia Season: Transcending Jet Lag in Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Jakarta and Singapore, premiered at the Singapore Season in London.⁵¹
2006: Geisha, commissioned by the Singapore Arts Festival and is the second production to be invited to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston and the Lincoln Center Festival in New York.⁵²
2007: 120, staged at the National Museum of Singapore in which the audience is ushered through the galleries, halls and exhibits.⁵³
2008: Vivien and the Shadows, commissioned by the Carolina Performing Arts University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.⁵⁴
2009: Diaspora, performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, a collaboration with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra.⁵⁵
2010: Miss Very Wagner, presented as part of the company’s 25th year.⁵⁶
2011: Fear of Writing, nominated for Production of the Year, Best Original Script (Tan Tarn How), Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress at the 12th Life! Theatre Awards.⁵⁷
2012: Lear Dreaming, staged at Singapore School of the Arts.⁵⁸

Past awards
2004: Balance, won Best Director (Low Kee Hong), Best Original Script (Kaylene and Paul Rae) and Best Set Design (Low Kee Hong) at the 4th Life! Theatre Awards.⁵⁹
2007: Geisha, won Best Director (Ong Keng Sen).⁶⁰
2007: Diaspora, won Best Use of Multimedia (Choy Ka Fai) at the 7th Life! Theatre Awards.⁶¹
2012: Fear of Writing, won Best Original Script (Tan Tarn How) at the 12th Life! Theatre Awards.⁶²



Authors
Lee Xin Ying and Veronica Chee



References
1. “The Company,” TheatreWorks, accessed 1985.
2. Adeline Chia, “Back on the Street,” Straits Times, 20 July 2009, 37 (From NewspaperSG); Michael Chiang, Army Daze.
3. Kate James, “Can Hopes Rise Above Doubts? Straits Times, 21 April 1985, 7; Hannah Pandian, “Cool Customer,” Straits Times, 9 January 1993, 2. (From NewspaperSG)
4. Sangeetha Madhavan, “Crossing Boundaries That Others Fear,” Business Times, 26 March 2010, 41. (From NewspaperSG)
5. Clara Chow, “Technically, They’re Winners,” Straits Times, 22 March 2004, L11. (From NewspaperSG)
6. Mak Mun Sun, “The Art of Sen,” Straits Times, 7 May 2007, 46. (From NewspaperSG)
7. Dylan Tan, “Ong Keng Sen Wins International Arts Prize,” Business Times, 31 July 2010, 17. (From NewspaperSG)
8. Tan Tarn How, “Productions”; Corrie Tan, “Aces Go Places,” Straits Times, 9 February 2012, 4–5. (From NewspaperSG)
9. David Chew, “TheatreWorks Towards the Future,” Today, 31 August 2005, 49; Hong Xinyi, “Making Dollars and Sen-se of Theatre,” Straits Times, 6 September 2005, 4. (From NewspaperSG)
10. “TheatreWorks Winds Up To Be Non-Profit Charity,” Straits Times, 18 February 1993, 24. (From NewspaperSG)
11.”3 Firms Donate $175,000 to Theatre Group,” Straits Times, 21 August 1989, 22. (From NewspaperSG)
12. “New Funding Sought as Pioneers Take a Break,” Straits Times, 21 October 1995, 7. (From NewspaperSG)
13. “Encore, Sponsors,” Straits Times, 17 December 1990, 27. (From NewspaperSG)
14. Julia Goh, “More Individuals Are Donating Money and Time to Arts Groups,” Straits Times, 7 February 1991, 24. (From NewspaperSG)
15. Clarissa Oon, “Up Close and Personal,” Straits Times, 21 May 2003, 4. (From NewspaperSG)
16. Chew, “TheatreWorks Towards the Future.” 
17. Corrie Tan, “Arts Groups Get More Funding,” Straits Times, 30 March 2012. (From NewspaperSG)
18. Suhaila Sulaiman, “Now It's Two,” Straits Times, 19 January 2002, 8. (From NewspaperSG)
19. TheatreWorks, “The Company.”
20. Hannah Pandian, “TheatreWorks' Lao Jiu Outsells Western Shows in Perth,” Straits Times, 9 March 1994, 12; Clarissa Oon, “Each Actor Will Perform Role in His Native Tongue,” Straits Times, 20 August 1997, 2. (From NewspaperSG)
21. Oon, “Each Actor Will Perform Role in His Native Tongue”; Josephine Tan, “Bard's Play Gets Asian Flavour for Benefit of Japanese,” Straits Times, 6 August 1997, 21; “TheatreWorks Milestones,” Straits Times, 7 August 2002, 4. (From NewspaperSG)
22. Pandian, “TheatreWorks' Lao Jiu Outsells Western Shows in Perth.” 
23. “International,” TheatreWorks, 1985.
24. “First Home-Grown Musical,” New Paper, 2 March 1998, 6. (From NewspaperSG)
25. “An Old Beauty Aims For Brand New Audiences,” Straits Times, 13 April 1998, 9; Chin Soo Fang, “Jack Neo Dolls Up for Beauty World,” Straits Times, 10 February 1998, 7. (From NewspaperSG)
26. “The Continuum: Beyong the Killing Fields,” TheatreWorks, 1985.
27. David Chew, “Migrants’ Stories Told,” Today, 21 September 2006, 58; Cheah U-Hoon, “S'pore Acts to Make a Splash in Edinburgh,” Business Times, 23 May 2009, 28. (From NewspaperSG)
28. Suhaila Sulaiman, “Now It's Two.” 
29. Parvathi Nayar, “Three Weeks of Lively Cultural Interface,” Business Times, 26 November 2003, 31. (From NewspaperSG)
30. Suhaila Sulaiman, “Now It's Two.” 
31. Yong Shu Chiang, “Return of the Native,” Today, 5 March 2003, 32. (From NewspaperSG)
32. Suhaila Sulaiman, “Now It's Two.” 
33. “About the Network,” Arts Network Asia, 1999.
34. Clarissa Oon, “Staging Expansions,” Straits Times, 31 January 2004, 5. (From NewspaperSG)
35. “At Last, Recognition for Playwrights,” Straits Times, 7 April 1998 (From Factiva via NLB’s eResources website); Suhaila Sulaiman, “Now It's Two.” 
36. Tara Tan, “Write at a Slumber Party,” Straits Times, 5 August 2008, 50. (From NewspaperSG)
37. Oon, “Staging Expansions.” 
38. James, “Can Hopes Rise Above Doubts?”
39. “TheatreWorks Milestones”; TheatreWorks, “Army Daze.”
40. “An Old Beauty Aims For Brand New Audiences.”
41. Cheah, “S'pore Acts to Make a Splash in Edinburgh.”
42. Pandian, “Cool Customer.” 
43. Pandian, “TheatreWorks' Lao Jiu Outsells Western Shows in Perth.” 
44. “First Outing to Cairo,” Straits Times, 29 August 1996, 9. (From NewspaperSG)
45. Oon, “Each Actor Will Perform Role in His Native Tongue”; “Lear,” TheatreWorks, 1985.
46. “TheatreWorks Milestones”; June Cheong, “More Australia-Singapore Cultural Tie-Ups in Store,” Straits Times, 20 December 2007, 81. (From NewspaperSG)
47. Clarissa Oon, “Classic Romance Now an Opera,” Straits Times, 7 February 2000, 6. (From NewspaperSG)
48. “TheatreWorks Milestones.”
49. Yong, “Return of the Native.” 
50. Clarissa Oon, “Bland Romance Needs More Spice,” Straits Times, 17 February 2004, 4. (From NewspaperSG)
51. Hong Xinyi, “Making Dollars and Sen-se of Theatre.” 
52. “First Time Win for Veteran,” Straits Times, 21 March 2007, 55. (From NewspaperSG)
53. “120,” TheatreWorks, 1985.
54. “Vivien and the Shadows,” TheatreWorks, 1985.
55. Cheah, “S'pore Acts to Make a Splash in Edinburgh.”
56. Madhavan, “Crossing Boundaries That Others Fear.”
57. Tan, “Aces Go Places.”
58. “Lear Dreaming,” 1985.
59. Clara Chow, “Bent Is Top Play, Balance Garners 3 Theatre Awards,” Straits Times, 30 March 2004, 1; “And the Winners Are…,” Straits Times, 30 March 2004, 1. (From NewspaperSG)
60. “First Time Win for Veteran.”
61. Adeline Chia. “Old Is Gold as Established Names Grab Top Honours,” Straits Times, 20 March 2007, 3. (From NewspaperSG)
62. Tan, “Aces Go Places.”



The information in this article is valid as at 29 May 2013 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. Please contact the Library for further reading materials on the topic.