Wild Rice

In a Singapore where dialects have been losing relevance for generations,&nbsp;Grandmother Tongue&nbsp;traces a young man’s struggle to connect with his 84-year-old Teochew-speaking grandmother.

He teaches her to use a mobile phone. He helps her buy her favourite brand of soya sauce. He visits her in hospital after a fall. Along the way, he begins to understand just what it means to spend decades in linguistic and cultural exile.

Back by popular demand after two sell-out runs, Thomas Lim’s funny, insi

Grandmother Tongue (2021)

Cast

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

这是一所给人带来“希望”的疗养院，只要你通过院方鉴定，符合检验栏里的条件，你就得以重返社会，过上“正常”生活。

疗养院里面住着怀抱梦想坚持不懈、放弃自我抗拒改变、放下过去寻求救赎的病人。他们是否可以，或是否有想过越过自身的缺陷，重新面对生活？而需要跨越的，是自设的框架、还是别人定下的制约？

正常？异常？又能通过一套制约就得以定夺吗？


CROSS (2020)

Director

主观？客观？或中立？

当人人都有一张裁定他人罪行的选票时，我们都能以理性的角

度、正义的观点去还原事件的真相吗?

Subjective? Objective? Or Neutral?

When given the power to cast a vote that will determine someone’s fate, their innocence or guilt, can we ever come to a decision without our prejudices blinding us to the truth?


View° (2019)

Who is Emily?

Nyonya, Peranakan, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a sister-in-law, a good friend, a matriarch, an abandoned woman ...

What defines social class? How does social status depend on what is considered acceptable by society? Whether we choose to discriminate against the poor or reject the notion of wealth, each person has their own critical standards of defining identity, status, and power. Such standards also point to an invisible class myth.

What is the cause of the ine

Who is Emily? (2018)

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)

Kaylene Tan

“You look to me. Eyes close, eyes open. I remember too. Like the clouds we named her after, she drifted in and out of our lives.” 

In the Silence of Your Heart is an invitation to enter the world of a charming politician and inveterate drinker. Lend him your ears because he needs to talk.

Thian has been paralysed for 13 years. He’s been still and silent all this time but his mind has not stopped dancing. He gets by with the two things he does have: his memory and his imagination. Today, his world is t

In the Silence of Your Heart (2018)

In a Singapore where dialects have been losing relevance for generations,&nbsp;Grandmother Tongue&nbsp;traces a young man’s struggle to connect with his 84-year-old Teochew-speaking grandmother. He teaches her to use a mobile phone. He helps her buy her favourite brand of soya sauce. He visits her in hospital after a fall. Along the way, he begins to understand just what it means to spend decades in linguistic and cultural exile.&nbsp;

Inspired by Kuo Pao Kun's Mama Looking For Her Cat, Thomas Lim’s funn

Grandmother Tongue (2017)

Saga Seed Theatre

The Swing explores the hopes and dreams of the Chinese diaspora through the eyes of Mei Sun, her mother, and her daughter Shirley. In 1972, after ten years in London, Mei Sun returns to Singapore with Shirley, so that her daughter can meet her grandmother. The trip helps Shirley to discover her roots, but for Mei Sun it is a reminder of the fractured ties she has left behind.


The Swing (2017)

Performer

In a Singapore where dialects have been losing relevance for generations,&nbsp;Grandmother Tongue&nbsp;traces a young man’s struggle to connect with his 84-year-old Teochew-speaking grandmother. He teaches her to use a mobile phone. He helps her buy her favourite brand of soya sauce. He visits her in hospital after a fall. Along the way, he begins to understand just what it means to spend decades in linguistic and cultural exile.

Inspired by Kuo Pao Kun’s seminal&nbsp;Mama Looking For Her Cat, Thomas Lim

Grandmother Tongue (2016)

Drama Box

A traditional&nbsp;kopi tiam, rich in memories and heritage, is at risk of becoming irrelevant when faced with rapid changes in our society. How should the elderly owner of the&nbsp;kopi tiam&nbsp;and his grandson deal with these external changes and pressures, and negotiate their differing views?

Adapted from Cultural Medallion recipient Kuo Pao Kun's 1986 play,&nbsp;Kopitiam, this experiential and interactive theatre performance will take the audience to the world of traditional coffee shops, allowing 

Kopitiam (2016)

Voiceover

Toy Factory Productions Limited

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, a Mandarin theatre company sets out to stage a classic Singapore play to mark the special occasion. There's only one problem: what play should they select?&nbsp;

Shortlisting several possible classic plays and enlisting the help of three actors through an audition, the company's artistic director brings the group on a gruelling selection process involving numerous rehearsals, re-enactments and soliloquies. The director plays the role of an historian, hoping to discern t

Upstage (2015)

Nine Years Theatre

Master of the house, Orgon, has invited religious Tartuffe to stay with the family. Not only that, his admiration for him is near insanity. He wants his daughter to marry Tartuffe, before making him the sole heir to his wealth. The rest of the family - the wife, son, daughter, and even the maid - has seen the hypocrite behind Tartuffe's pious appearance, except for Orgon who remains blinded by faith. As such, the family finds themselves at wit's end. How do you make a fox reveals its true nature? How do you

Tartuffe (2015)

Playground Entertainment

Centre 42 currently has limited information on this archive entry. If you possess any relevant information and/or archival material, please contact us at&nbsp;archive@centre42.sg.


Firecrackers and Bombshells (2014)

David the Best 2.0 - Kucing Kuraps FTW&nbsp;is a talk show about the power of the little! Helmed by the affable and witty Huang Wen Hong (黄文鸿), it not only features well-known personalities on stage, but also the ordinary Singaporeans, new immigrants, uncles, aunties and maybe your neighbour!


David the Best 2.0 - Kucing Kuraps FTW (2012)

Choreographer

Trainer

Project Mending Sky: US&nbsp;is the final installment of Drama Box's Community Art Project on Environment. In the finale, we come together as a community and go through an experiential journey to discover/re-discover our connection with the environment.&nbsp;

We'll journey through (over 1.5km) the now defunct Bukit Timah Railway Station to "search" for the legendary Bukit Timah Monkey Man, starting from the bustling city into the darkness of the forest.&nbsp;


Project Mending Sky: Us (2012)

Designer

Trapped in an unknown time, in an unknown corner afar, the only things five unknown souls can recall are the great uncertainties of their correlation.&nbsp;

They embark on a retracing of mutual identities but soon derail into pondering over the state of their beings. Is this merely an attempt to provide meaning to their transient forms - however arbitrary?&nbsp;

They start to reflect, and try to salvage whatever is left of their memory, while yearning for a glimpse of a beacon of hope somewhere afar.&

Afar (2012)

An original monologue based on the life of acclaimed thespian Bai Yan.

Bai Yan, born as Yan Bo Yuan in Jiang Su, China; inspired to be an entertainer since his innocent days of watching Chinese Opera. He left his beloved family to join a travelling troupe in 1930s.&nbsp;

His troupe toured from Southern China to Thailand, Malaysia and finally Singapore. Bai Yan then enjoyed a long and successful acting career in local theatre scene and with Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS). Upon his retirement

White Soliloquy (2010)

The Necessary Stage

The Necessary Stage's Theatre for Seniors is back with&nbsp;Encore II: Heartland! Heartland!

Featuring a series of short plays mostly devised by the participants,&nbsp;Encore II: Heartland! Heartland!&nbsp;depicts the Singaporean lifestyle in the high-rise buildings of HDB heartlands. Meet colourful characters in our public spaces such as coffeeshops, elevators, void decks and even markets. Peek behind their closed doors to witness domestic and familial scenes that reflect our common basic struggle for e

Encore II: Heartland! Heartland! (2010)

Facilitator

ENCORE: An Evening of Ageless Theatre is a showcase from the participants of The Necessary Stage's Theatre For Seniors Programme.

The 3-year programme, which was launched in April 2008 with support the Council for Third Age, comprises participants ages 50 and above undergoing a series of workshops with professional facilitators, led by Artistic Director Alvin Tan. The initiative was designed to equip participants with the essential skills and knowledge in drama.

Their end-of-first-year presentation,&n

Encore: An Evening of Ageless Theatre (2009)

IF ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE, WHAT SCENE OF YOUR LIFE WOULD YOU OFFER AS A LAST ENCORE?

Trapped in a limbo between existences, seven deceased Singaporeans are reading their own obituaries. A postman, a teacher, a grassroots leader, a businesswoman, an actress, a taxi-driver and his wife - seven elderly strangers with little in common in&nbsp;Life,&nbsp;now find themselves together as they face the greatest adventure of their lives -&nbsp;Death.&nbsp;Before this wait is over, they must each revisit, relieve

First Light (2008)

A sinister rape and murder sets the whole community abuzz: what dangers will it bring to this woman's life? What has she weathered from her labyrinth of broken loves? Where does she stand in the glittering world of prostitutes, porn stars and playboy models? What does one stripper have to do with the turbulence of anti-colonialism, anti-pornography movements and the birthing pains of nations and cultures that rocked the Fifties?&nbsp;

Look upon his-story with her eyes.
And know her tale from her own ton

I am Queen (2008)

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)

T:>Works (TheatreWorks)

April, May and June, three older women suddenly alone in world, had been living together for longer than they cared to remember before finally moving out two years ago for good, or so they thought.

When Anne, an old friend on her deathbed calls and asks to see them one last time, they find themselves back in Singapore, together again, and with one small problem: they don’t remember who Anne is. In the meantime, Anne has hired a dance teacher to teach her friends to salsa, so that they can let her relive 

Salsa Salsa Salsa! (2006)

Long House presents a simple and familiar tale: The death of a mother brings her two daughters, son, son-in-law and daughter-in-law together in a gathering. After the cremation, they return to their old familial house to see it in a completely new light. Emptiness and nostalgia echo in the void left by their matriarchal figure's demise.&nbsp;

As reminiscences of the past and the strain of the present permeate the household, tensions start to surface. These swell into alternating episodes of conflict, com

Long House (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)

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)

A diverse group of senior citizens live in a retirement home called Sunset Rise. They are of different races, religions and ages and they speak different languages and dialects.

But the differences between them go beyond the physical. They vary in temperament: some accept age gracefully, some are friendly, some are quarrelsome and others are vengeful. They vary in their tastes: whether in the food they eat or the clothes they wear. Above all, they differ in how they view the final days of their lives: on

Sunset Rise (1999)

Surrounded by neighbours' gossip and prata dinners, each person in this play has their own dream: Penny lives in hope of finding pride in herself; Jasmine wants to be rich and famous; and Hussein desires to become a celebrity footballer like Fandi Ahmad. In their pursuit of these goals, they realise that there are other aspects of life which are infinitely more important.&nbsp;


Singapore Girl (1997)

As Caterpillars

we grow in different atmospheres
digest different leaves
breathe different air

Inevitably
we'll all weave ourselves a cocoon
awaiting in the empty darkness

Ultimately
we'll all degenerate
into what
we do not and will not know

(written by Goh Boon Teck, translated by Mak Mun Heng)&nbsp;


K (1996)

Time : 1967 - 1995
Place : Rever Palace Night Club

Yao Xiaodie,&nbsp;a once famous singer, is invited by her bosom pal&nbsp;Jin Lulu&nbsp;to make a comeback at the Rever Palace Night Club. This is where they first performed when they started out as aspiring singers many years ago. Unfortunately, Rever Palace now faces the fate of being condemned.&nbsp;

Xiaodie&nbsp;therefore decides to present a historic concert to commemorate Rever Palace's glorious past. Its present decrepit state only serves to br

I Have A Date with Spring (1995)

On the final night of Bugis Street, transvestite KC is getting tired of his furtive life. Mother knows but not Father so each time he goes home, he has to dress up properly as a man. The resentment deepens especially since he feels his parents are to be blamed for his transvestism. His terribly closeted boyfriends, the mysterious Chuck, is unlikely to want to live together with him. Weary of a life so dishonest, his one option is to have a sex change and marry his American pen pal.&nbsp;During his sex chang

Lest the Demons Get to Me (1992)

Jalyn Han is a veteran theatre practitioner with extensive knowledge and experience in the performing arts and theatre education scene in Singapore. Her passion and strength in gathering talents from various artistic fields has led her to helm InArts Collective, (www.inarts.com.sg),&nbsp;an avenue that uses theatre to connect with people from all walks of life.

Photography by&nbsp;So Drama Entertainment

Last Updated: December 2023

Centre 42

In an ever expanding and growing underground passage network, three relationships and a story of a missing cat unfold. Does the man-made space bury or unearth hidden human desires? How wide apart are our lives from that depicted by advertisements on the underground walls?

Artist’s Motivation:
A playwright is (largely) confined to constructing protagonist journeys via spoken words. Yet, there are many limitations on what those spoken words reveal about the protagonists. Spoken words are like tips of iceb

Under by Lee Shyh Jih

“You look to me. Eyes close, eyes open. I remember too.&nbsp;Like the clouds we named her after, she drifted in and out of our lives.”

In the Silence of Your Heart&nbsp;is an invitation to enter the world of a charming politician and inveterate drinker. Lend him your ears because he needs to talk.

Thian has been paralysed for 13 years. He’s been still and silent all this time but his mind has not stopped dancing. He gets by with the two things he does have: his memory and his imagination. Today, his w

In the Silence of Your Heart by Kaylene Tan

Singapore Art Museum

As part of Singapore Art Week 2024, the Singapore Art Museum and Centre 42 are commissioning and producing a collection of original audio plays written in response to the geographical area of Tanjong Pagar/Pasir Panjang where the museum currently resides.&nbsp;

From 19 - 28 Jan 2024, the Singapore Art Museum will host these audio plays in their premises. Each play will have an audio spot installation inviting visitors to plug in to a world of audio drama, connecting their physical site to imagined fictio

Jalyn Han

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