Download Jean Tay Jean Tay graduated in 1997 with a double

Producer / Playwright – Jean Tay
Jean Tay graduated in 1997 with a double-degree in creative writing and economics from Brown
University, USA. She has been nominated three times for Best Original Script at The Straits Times
Life! Theatre Awards, and won for Everything but the Brain in 2006. For her fiction, she was awarded
Weston Prize for Fiction from Brown, as well as the 1st and 3rd prizes from the National Arts
Council's Golden Point Short Story competition in 1995 and 2001 respectively.
Jean was attached to the Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT) as Resident Playwright from 2006—
2009, and since the start of 2012, has been helming SRT's Young Company’s Writing Programme.
She is also currently an adjunct lecturer in playwriting at Nanyang Technological University. Her
plays Everything but the Brain and Boom have been published by Epigram Books, and Boom is currently
used as an 'O' and 'N' Level literature text.
Jean's most recent projects include being scriptwriter for the 2015 National Day Parade Golden
Jubilee celebrations and collaborating with Drama Box on It won't be too long: The Cemetery for
Singapore International Festival of Arts 2015.
Jean is the founding Artistic Director of Saga Seed Theatre, set up in 2015 to bring Singaporean
stories to the stage, and provide a platform to showcase and nurture local talent.
Director and Dramaturg – Mei Ann Teo
Mei Ann Teo is a Singaporean theatre/film maker working internationally and based in the US Her
work has toured the US and international festivals including Belgium’s Festival de Liege (Lyrics From
Lockdown, “Truly polished, meaningful and entertaining” - NY Times), Beijing International Fringe
Festival (Labyrinth: Defining Humanity—Top 8 of Festival in Beijing News), M1 Singapore Fringe
Festival, Edinburgh International Fringe (MiddleFlight, “Stunning” - Scotsman), INFANT
Experimental Theatre Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, Shanghai International Experimental Theatre
Festival, Dumbo Arts Festival, and the Montreal World Film Festival.
She has worked at The Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Rep, The Hungarian
Theatre of Cluj Romania, Theatre of Yugen, Crowded Fire, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
As Resident Artist at Pacific Union College for seven years, she created a program focused on
devised ensemble work through collage and documentary theatre techniques. She is the 2015 Phil
Killian Directing Fellow at OSF, a Hemera Foundation Tending Space Fellow, Asian Cultural
Council Fellow and a recipient of the Network of Ensemble Theatres Travel Grant, Center for
Cultural Innovation Grant.
She is an Artist in Residence for The Performance Project at University Settlement 2015/2016 and
the Assistant Professor of Directing and Dramaturgy at Hampshire College. MFA: Theatre
Directing, Columbia University.
Co-director and Puppetry Consultant – Benjamin Ho
Benjamin is a madman who vows his love and life-long devotion to inanimate objects called
PUPPETS. He accumulated mileages from land, sea and air, just to acquire knowledge and skills so
as to bring life to these puppets! His mastery of puppetry has not gone unnoticed. He has shared his
great love with local audience through many production companies such as TheatreWorks, The
Theatre Practice, The Finger Players, Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble, The Necessary Stage, W!ld
Rice and Singapore Hokkien Huay Guan Arts and Cultural Troupe, just to name a few; and audience
abroad through participation in various puppetry festivals in Asia and Europe. Injection of life into
puppets is not only his sole purpose in life, he also aspires to take this educational and meaningful
art form to a greater height by entailing his mastery of puppetry with multimedia, and also through
our rich Asian culture and stories to enthuse and engage his audience, young and old.
In 2009, under the support of the National Arts Council’s International Arts Residency (IAR)
initiative, Benjamin participated in the La Mama International Symposium—a training programme
for professional directors held in Umbria, Italy.
Co-Producer – Thong Pei Qin
Thong Pei Qin’s theatre journey began as a student director for National University of Singapore
(NUS) Theatre Studies’ The West Wing, which toured to Shanghai in 2008. She graduated with a
Theatre Studies B.A. honours degree in 2009, and eventually brought NUS Thespis’ devised work,
Re: Almost Left Behind, to the Singapore Arts Festival 2011, as a site-specific production spread
throughout The Substation. Thereafter, she earned her M.A. degree in Theatre Directing with
distinctions from the University of Essex, East 15 Acting School. Directing overseas, she
collaborated with international artists on William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The
Rhoding House, London, 2012), before training in directing at GITIS: The Russian University of
Theatre Arts, Moscow. She also assisted in directing David Schneider’s premiere of Making Stalin
Laugh (Tristan Bates Theatre, London, 2013).
Back in Singapore, some of her directorial credits include Alan Ayckbourn’s Ernie’s Incredible
Illucinations (The Arts House, 2014) for children, as well as Ovidia Yu’s Life Choices (Centre 42, 2014).
She has worked with different theatre companies such as TheatreWorks, Nine Years Theatre and
Faust International Youth Theatre, and enjoys staging picture book adaptations for disadvantaged
children. Currently, she is honoured to be on board The Finger Players’ Watch This Space
(Directors’ Cycle, 2014-15), and to teach theatre modules at both NUS and the National Institute of
Education.
Actor – Tan Kheng Hua
Kheng Hua is a well-known award-winning theatre/television actress/producer in Singapore. She is
regarded as a veteran of Singapore theatre and was recently selected as one of 50 iconic local stage
personalities in an exhibition celebrating 50 years of Singapore theatre.
Onstage, she has appeared in lead roles in local landmark plays including Beauty World, Descendants of
the Eunuch Admiral and Animal Farm. Most recently, she was seen in W!ld Rice’s Cooling Off Day and
TheatreWorks’ Fear Of Writing.
Kheng is a household name in Singapore from her role of Margaret in Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, as well
as in well-received television dramas including War Diary, The Singapore Short Story Project and The
Pupil.
She is one of the more prolific stage and television creative producers in Singapore, including
critically-acclaimed original musical cabaret The Dim Sum Dollies® from 2004 to 2006.
Kheng was co-creator, producer and performer for the sold-out No.7 (Georgetown Festival 2011).
In 2014, she brought more than 64 Singaporean and Malaysian artists together to Georgetown
Festival in The SIN-PEN Colony, celebrating Singapore and Penang’s shared heritage in food, visual
art, music, theatre and design.
On the international scene, she was cast in The Philanthropist, The Patriarch, Serangoon Road and scored
a major role as the Empress Dowager in the Netflix Original Series Marco Polo.
In 2015, she directed a site-specific dance for Singapore’s only arts-walkabout OH! Open House and
was one of the 20 Singaporean contemporary artists chosen to represent Singapore in a showcase
presented by the Singapore Tourism Board in Beijing, London and New York City.
Actor – Brendon Fernandez
Brendon's theatre credits include Public Enemy (2015), The Importance of Being Earnest (2014, 2013,
2009), The Optic Trilogy (2013, 2001), Company (2012), La Cage aux Folles (2012), Romeo & Juliet (2012),
Equus (2011), To Kill a Mockingbird (2010), The King Lear Project: A Trilogy (2008), Boeing Boeing (2005),
Everything but the Brain (2005), Landmarks: Asian Boys Vol. 2 (2004), Bent (2003), Rent (2001) and The
Theory of Everything (2000).
Actor – Jean Toh
Jean Toh graduated from the BA(Hons) Acting Programme at LASALLE College of the Arts. Her
stage credits include The Lower Depths, Tartuffe and An Enemy of the People (Nine Years Theatre),
Abigail Williams in The Crucible (Toy Factory Productions), Decimal Points 7.7, Decimal Points 810 (Cake
Theatrical Productions) and Stand Behind the Yellow Line (Singapore Repertory Theatre). TV credits
include main roles in HBO Asia's Grace and Mediacorp's Working Class. In 2013, she was the selected
artist by Institut Français to attend the Avignon Theatre Festival in France. Jean is a founding and
core member of Nine Years Theatre Ensemble Project.
Actor – Thomas Pang
Thomas Pang holds a First Class Degree in Acting from LASALLE ('15), and a diploma from the
San Francisco School of the Arts (’08). Recent work includes The Good, the Bad, and the Sholay with
Checkpoint Theatre, Versus at Singapore International Festival of Arts 2015 with Cake Theatrical
Productions, and Tribes with Pangdemonium Productions. Thomas has also performed
internationally, in Vietnam at the Asia Pacific Bureau Theatre Schools Conference 2013 with Aubrey
Mellor, and the world premiere of Philip K. Gotanda’s No.5: The Angry Red Drum in San Francisco
('09). Thomas is deeply grateful for all the mentorship and support he has received.