The Theatre Practice

After each breath

Before the next

Time streams

Into the moments,

Of timelessness

The Ordinary and The Unspectacular&nbsp;is a contemplation of the minutiae of everyday life. When each snapshot in time is magnified, the everyday becomes estranged and the simplicity of each movement takes on new depth and meaning. Devised alongside a distinguished veteran cast of Singapore theatre practitioners, Director Okorn-Kuo Jing Hong places the aging body front and centre, magnifying, examining and celeb

The Ordinary and The Unspectacular (2018)

Director

Over the last few years, the more I get to know about&nbsp;Kunqu&nbsp;and its artists, the more I see its resemblance to Zheng He and his plight. The body of the&nbsp;Kunqu&nbsp;artist has survived the past 600 years - every expression, gesture and movement - they made up its form, which is also its content. However, the traditional artists inherited this craft from their forebears, through a very strict and controlled training which can be somewhat cruel - "Don't ask, just do it ten thousand times and it'l

Descendants 600 (2016)

Cast

A new devised play featuring a lineup of veteran &amp; new theatre performers.

In 1969, Kuo Pao Kun wrote and directed&nbsp;The Struggle,&nbsp;which was banned by the government two weeks before its opening. The artistic team was forced to replace the performance with poetry recital and skits.&nbsp;The Struggle&nbsp;remains Kuo Pao Kun's only script yet to be staged. It reflects upon the social turmoil resulting from rapid urban development and people's struggles against these changes back in the 70s.&nb

The Struggle: Years Later (2015)

After the demise of his girlfriend Jing, A-Le packs up to pursue his musical ambitions in New York. There he meets the easy-going A-Qiang, a fellow dream hunter from Singapore, who gets him a job at a restaurant. On a particular takeout delivery, an aspiring actress named Rose enters A-Le's life. Soon a bittersweet friendship of battered dreams and bruised hearts is born amongst them. But with each passing day, Rose begins to feel a little more for A-Le. Unknown to them however, the future is about to chang

If There're Seasons... (2014)

Choreographer

Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral,&nbsp;the seminal script written by Kuo Pao Kun, the late dramatist and founder of The Theatre Practice is one of Singapore's most iconic representations of contemporary theatre. The material success of Ming dynasty eunuch Zheng He, in juxtaposition to his physical and psychological abjectness becomes a powerful theatrical metaphor for the repression and displacement of the modern man. Performed to critical acclaim throughout the world, Zheng He's journey into himself is un

Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral (2010)

Inspired by the colourful folk stories of Qing dynasty classic&nbsp;The Strange Tales of Liao Zhai, Liao Zhai Rocks!&nbsp;vamps up all things period and brings you into a fantastical world of captivating characters. The scholar, Sang Xiao, wins the affections of Ying Ning, a vixen spirit, only to fall for the ploy of a devious ghost. But when he is poisoned and cast into the underworld, it is the vixen spirit who, driven by true love, embarks on a perilous journey to save him...

Liao Zhai Rocks!&nbsp;bri

Liao Zhai Rocks! (2010)

Acting Coach

Three women on a stage
Shadows rooted and fleeting
A diary. An encyclopedia. A cello.&nbsp;
Wander lost between the margins

The first she is disheveled and dirty
A pale white face in imagined threads
The second she is tidy and clean
Gorged on knowing with each anxious minute
The third she is young and fair
Existing echoed in the strains of her music

They don't turn left-or-right
Eyes never cast about
Blink and they will lose their way
Each pacing and racing a familiar path
Spacing. Running

-ing (2009)

A warrior and his wife are ambushed by a bandit in a bamboo grove. The warrior is slain. His wife, raped. A hundred years later, at the ruins of the Rashomon, a medium calls out to the lost souls. Will the truth be known?


Rashomon (2009)

herself she finds again, at 4.48
hours lost, minutes numbed, seconds drip
dripping a mounting sense of medication
(but without the aggressive advertising)
weapons of mass prescription&nbsp;
herself she loses again
(i don't know what day it is)
tracing a trail of jagged fragments
corridors of wards of corridors slamming
into her filament of sanity&nbsp;


4.48 Psychosis (2009)

Performer

The winter of death numbs a lover’s pain,
The autumn of dreams lies awake in vain,
The summer of life sings its passing song,
And spring comes again… with courage to hope, and go on.

"If there are seasons I would see snow, but not around here..."&nbsp;

After the demise of his girlfriend Xiao Jing, A-Le packs up to pursue his musical ambitions in New York. There he meets the easy-going A-Qiang, a fellow dream hunter from Singapore, who gets him a job at a restaurant. On a particular take-out deliver

If There're Seasons... (2009)

Associate Director

The winter of death numbs a lover’s pain,
The autumn of dreams lies awake in vain,
The summer of life sings its passing song,
And spring comes again… with courage to hope, and go on.

"If there are seasons I would see snow, but not around here..."&nbsp;

After the painful demise of his girlfriend Jing, Ah Le flies to New York to breathe life into his fading dream of writing music. There he meets and befriends Ah Qiang, a fellow dream hunter from Singapore, who helps him settle right in. It is a diffi

If There're Seasons... (2007)

Four performers use their bodies to create different settings and sound effects.

With their bodies, the performers have created a theatre piece that is more realistic and more desperately profound than "conversational theatre can ever be.


Play Play (2007)

Creator

Playing. Playfulness. Games. These are almost lost to us in the frenetic automation of our daily lives. Work has become such a representation of adulthood and responsibility that the idea of playing has become synonymous with childishness and a waste of time.&nbsp;Play Play&nbsp;is about re-discovering the freedom within ourselves to play, and about finding how to see everything around us as a game: not to win, but to enjoy every moment of it, not to succeed, but to discover the infinite possibilities.

P

Play Play (2006)

Theatre Training & Research Programme

Are objects truly inanimate? Come with an open mind - you'll never look at your objects the same way again!


Objects of Desire (2006)

After eight daughters, a son is finally here - and no ordinary son is he.

Shifu, a master of traditional puppetry, makes a prediction before his birth that the boy will be endowed with exceptional intelligence, and will grow up to be a man of great accomplishment. He is therefore named You Wei (meaning "achievement"), and nicknamed Lao Jiu (the ninth-born).

Lao Jiu's parents and his many sisters devote themselves to the care of the gifted child, harbouring ambitions for him to do well in his studies, 

Lao Jiu (2005)

Intercultural Theatre Institute

In the midst of betrayal, war and confusion, a baby cries…

Grusha finds him, but can she protect him from the treacherous Fat Prince?

Through wind and snow, and trying to elude the Fat Prince’s army of Ironshirts, she makes her way across the mountains towards her home village.

Find out for yourself what fate awaits Grusha and the child, in this lively production of Brecht’s well-loved classic.


The Caucasian Chalk Circle (2005)

A world of play exploding with emotions

A world of imagination explored through expressive bodies&nbsp;


Play Play (2005)

Join us in a world where time slows down and where a look or gesture must suffice in “speaking"complex stories of daily life. In Ota Shogo’s non-verbal masterpiece a series of travellers encounter a broken tap of running water, and sometimes each other, in the course of their journeys. According to Ota, “There are words here… you just can’t hear them.”


The Water Station (2004)

The Necessary Stage

The three main dramatic strands of the play are:

Andrian Lim and Catherine Tan meet. Adrian 'offers her treatment' for her problems. He woos her. She moves in. They marry. He abuses her. They tour their own strip and magic show. He convinces her to become a prostitute. With Cat's help he treats and abuses many other women. They abuse and kill two children. They are punished with death.&nbsp;

Brother and Sister love each other dearly. They are conjoined. They are so close to each other yet so far, as t

Such Sweet Sorrow (2004)

In&nbsp;Lights Up,&nbsp;a middle-aged woman who discovers that she has a terminal illness frantically tries to fulfil all her dreams and put her life in order. Her only wish is to leave in peace: "She has lived her life, now she is gone."&nbsp;


Lights Up (2003)

Movement Coach

"What! Would you make no distinction between hypocrisy and true devotion…put artifice on a level with sincerity, confound appearance with reality, value the shadow as much as the substance, the false with the real?” – Moliere

Have times changed? Moliere’s&nbsp;classic play witnesses the humour and folly of being human.

The second graduation performance of the pioneer class of the Theatre Training &amp; Research Programme was a contemporary and radical approach to Moliere’s comedy,&nbsp;Tartuffe.

Th

Tartuffe (2003)

Tiger Tally is set in the year 257BC of the warring states era in the 20th year of the reign of King of Wei. The drama centres around a plot by the King’s half-brother, Lord Xinling, and the King’s favourite concubine, Lady Ruji, to capture the other half of the Tiger Tally to order the movement of the royal army to help the people of Zhao against the Qin army. When the plot is exposed, the lives of Lady Ruji and the consort of Wei, Lord Xinling’s mother are threatened by an infuriated King.


Tiger Tally (2003)

They kicked
They punched
They scratched... to get their way. Do you?

Come watch the animals tickle and tease you with their play.


Animal Farm (2002)

It is seven days after Dr Sun Yat Sen’s death.&nbsp;His second wife, Chen Cui Fen, sits, waiting for&nbsp;his ‘return’. She clings on to a watch which&nbsp;he left her in his will. She soon realises that&nbsp;time is not what it seems to be, that an image&nbsp;can be an imitation...

What happens when a woman loves too much? What happens when a man is too great? What happens beyond revolution?&nbsp;

This potent collaboration between The&nbsp;Necessary Stage and The Theatre Practice is&nbsp;inspired by 

One Hundred Years in Waiting (2001)

William Teo

Asia-in-Theatre Research Centre

Inspired by the true story of Bophana, who coped with torture at the hands of the Pol Pot henchmen by retreating into the rich imaginative and spiritual world of the Ramayana and imagining herself to be Sita.

Where do some extraordinary individuals find the reserves of strength to withstand physical pain and mental torture? I was very drawn to the idea that a self-created inner world of the aesthetic imagination could be a source of such a spiritual strength and sustenance. For Bophana, the Ramayana epic

Sita (2000)

Production Manager

From veteran actors to new faces; from theatre to dance; Stories and images that are both poignant and universal;&nbsp;Under the Last Dust&nbsp;is a rare Singaporean production; one that transcends language and gender; one that connects us all as humans living at the edge of life... a return to innocence.


Under the Last Dust (2000)

Powerfully driven by the artistic team renowned for its daring forays into sensitive social issues, the dynamic ensemble of&nbsp;Walking Into Doors&nbsp;will give you a no punches pulled, in your face exposé of violence in the Singapore home.&nbsp;


Walking Into Doors (1998)

This production tickled audiences to wild laughter during its run in December 1996 when The Theatre Practice (TTP) presented it as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations. Now it's back by popular demand! A hilarious musical written by Lou Bei An (Taiwan) based on an opera script written in the Yuan Dynasty. A young man was conscripted into the army and upon his return ten years later, made a fool of himself while seducing a woman who turned out to be his own wife!&nbsp;


The Soldier and His Virtuous Wife (1998)

Movement Designer

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Family (1998)

Superfriends at the Hall of Justice explores how a basic human function, such as communication, is problematised. Solipsism and narcissism replaces the humility to learn and the process of self-discovery. As the desire for stability and self-definition becomes the premise for existence, truth is no longer an important journey one takes to depart from the familiar centre.


Superfriends at the Hall of Justice (1998)

Movement

On these final resting grounds lay soldiers, prostitutes and a scholar. This sounds like a foreign land, ruins on a faraway wilderness. In actual fact, this cemetery is in our midst. It sits quietly in a private residential district, on Chuan Hoe Avenue in Yio Chu Kang.

The soldiers were from the Japanese Imperial Army of the Second World War. They were killed on battle grounds during the war, in execution chambers after. They died of illness, by accident, by suicide. They all lay here, regardless of ran

The Spirits Play (1998)

With humour and passion, Galileo (I feel the earth move…) interweaves the true life of visionary astronomer Galileo and the lives of modern characters who face dilemmas of their own. A high energy tale of deception, power and persecution.


Galileo [I feel the earth move] (1997)

An original multi-lingual multi-racial play about the life &amp; times and joys &amp; struggles of Geylang.


Geylang People in the Net (1997)

Practice Theatre Ensemble

Little Girl has no friends because she asks 'silly' question.&nbsp;

Old Tree is 'funny' because its leaves grow near the ground. Who has time for a dumb, old tree, anyway. You know, a tree is just a tree... well, almost.&nbsp;

Little Girl meets Old Tree. They become friends. Bulldozers come to remove the tree. Girl risks her life to save Tree...


The Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree (1989)

As a thunderstorm approaches, peace at the autocratic miner-businessman Zhou Puyuan's idyllic mansion is broken.

His rebellious second wife Fanyi, in love with his elder son Ping, discovers the latter has fallen for the maid Lu
Sifeng, daughter of the head servant Lu Gui. As Lu Shiping, wife of Lu Gui, comes to visit Sifeng, she discovers to her great horror that the mansion owner is her former love and that her daughter is carrying the baby of her own son, Ping.

As Zhou Puyuan wakes up to the ugly r

Thunderstorm (1988)

Props

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防火的人 (1987)

Effects

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Kuo Jing Hong

WORKS DOCUMENTED IN THE ARCHIVE

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