Download annex 3 - National Arts Council

ANNEX 3
Cogito
Cast and Creative Team
Cast
NOORLINAH MOHAMED
KATHERINE LEE
Noorlinah earned a Master of Arts in Performance Studies at New York University’s
Tisch School of the Arts, and has performed and toured extensively since 1988 with
companies like TheatreWorks, Action Theatre, The Theatre Practice and The Necessary
Stage. She has also performed with Wild Rice and Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble and
most recently with Cake Theatre.
Also an arts educator, Noorlinah has received grants such as the NAC Artist-in-School
for her drama education work from Primary to Secondary schools. She is presently
teaching Theatre History at LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts’ B.A. programmes, and
Voice and Theatre at the National Institute of Education.
An advocate of professional development and needs of actors and drama educators in
Singapore, Noorlinah co-founded two professional bodies – the Association of Singapore
Actors (Secretary) and Singapore Drama Educators Association (President).
In 2003, she began collaborating with visual and performing artists in creating arts in
community projects in Kaki Bukit Centre (Prison School) and Changi Women’s Prison as
well as the Jumpstart Incubator Programme with the CCDC.
In 2005, Noorlinah received Singapore Women’s Weekly’s Great Women of the Year
Award for her contributions to the arts.
CLAIRE WONG
KATHERINE LEE
Claire Wong graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University, New York,
and an LL.B (Hons) from the National University of Singapore. She is a co-founder and
Joint Artistic Director of Checkpoint Theatre.
Claire has performed to critical and popular acclaim both locally and in major
international arts festivals and in cities such as Edinburgh, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg,
Copenhagen, New York, Paris, Adelaide, Tokyo, Yokohama and Fukuoka. Her
performance in Huzir Sulaiman’s acclaimed play Atomic Jaya garnered her nominations
for Best Actress and Best Ensemble Performance in both the Singapore Life! Theatre
Awards and the Malaysian Cameronian Arts Awards respectively. She was also
nominated for the Best Actress award for Occupation, a commission of the Singapore
Arts Festival 2002. Her stage credits include: Atomic Jaya, Opiume (Checkpoint
Theatre); Atomic Jaya (Five Arts Centre); Occupation (Straits Theatre Company); The
Woman In A Tree On the Hill (Wild Rice); Lear, Madame Mao’s Memories, Beauty
World, Three Children (Theatreworks).
Claire directs and writes for stage and screen. She was nominated for Best Director in
the Life! Theatre Awards for the landmark production of the Eleanor Wong trilogy of
plays, Invitation To Treat.
For Crossroads 2006: An International Women’s
Contemporary Theatre Festival, she co-created and performed in the piece Recalling
Mother.
Also a lawyer, Claire is the Corporate Communications Partner at Rodyk & Davidson
LLP.
NEO SWEE LIN
KATHERINE LEE
Swee Lin received a Diploma in Dramatic Art from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music
and Drama, and an LL.B (Hons) from the National University of Singapore.
Her theatre credits include: Blithe Spirit, Cheek, Homesick, 2nd Link, For the Pleasure of
Seeing Her Again, Cinderellah!, The Morning People (Singapore Arts Festival), 7th
Drawer, Club Tempest, The Crucible, Ah Kong’s Birthday Party, Hamlet, The Glass
Menagerie, Half Lives (voted Best Play by The Straits Times), M. Butterfly (Singapore
Arts Festival), Beauty World, The Coffin is too Big for the Hole and No Parking on Odd
Days (Singapore Arts Festival), Emily of Emerald Hill, My Mother’s Chest, Love Letters,
Drunken Prawns, From the Belly of the Carp, The Yang Family, Fried Rice Paradise,
Trip to the South, The Moon is Less Bright, Mother Courage, Caucasian Chalk Circle,
Medea, Mama Looking for her Cat, Hayavadana (Singapore Drama Festival), Top Girls,
The House of Bernada Alba, 3 Children, Army Daze, Dragon’s Teeth Gate (Singapore
Arts Festival).
Work in the UK includes: Takeaway (Time-out Critics Choice) & The Letter (Lyric
Hammersmith), Mail Order Bride (West Yorkshire Playhouse), 3 Japanese Women
(Cockpit Theatre), A Secret Slave (BBC TV), Trishaw & The Woman in a Tree on a Hill
(Chandler Theatre)
Television includes: Random Acts, The Celebration, Really Something, Life –
MAUREEN, PCK Pte Ltd (ATV Best comedy actress award), Drive: Life and Death, My
Grandson the Doctor.
Film includes: Anna and the King, Where Got Problem, Teenage Textbook, 12 Storeys,
Nightwatch, Cut and Katong Fugue.
JAMES SCHUBERT
LEX
James received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from New York University’s Tisch
School of the Arts.
James has appeared on the Singapore stage with Players Theatre in Alice in
Wonderland, A Year with Frog & Toad, The BFG, The Little Prince, Alexander and the
Terrible…Day and The Twits; and with The Little Company in I Think I Can and Little
Wings. He also appeared on Singapore television in Claire Wong’s Project Peter and
several episodes of Singapore Shakes!.
In New York he played in NAATCO’s Antigone, a Target Margin Lab production of
Tamburlaine, Active Eye’s production of Woyzeck at the Culture Project, The Americana
Project at the Theatorium, The Visit at Theatre Three and Saved at The Currican, as well
as a workshop production of an original adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves.
Creative Team
CHIU CHIEN SEEN
CO-PRODUCER
A co-founder and Finance Director of Checkpoint Theatre, Chien Seen is a trained
accountant with a wealth of financial and management experience.
A recipient of the KPMG Peat Marwick Scholarship, he graduated from the National
University of Singapore with an Honours degree in 1991. Upon graduation, he joined the
international accounting firm, KPMG Peat Marwick as an auditor. His portfolio of clients
included major banks and listed companies. In 1994, he joined a multi-national company
and headed the group finance department.
For Checkpoint Theatre, Chien Seen co-produced Atomic Jaya (2003) which toured
Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Election Day (2004), and Opiume for the Singapore Arts
Festival 2004 and the Hong Kong New Vision Arts Festival 2004. He also managed the
production for Michael Chiang’s Private Parts which played to full houses in Esplanade
Theatre.
Most recently, he produced Checkpoint Theatre’s A Language of Their Own, which was
nominated for Best Production in the 7th Life! Theatre Awards.
Chien Seen is currently the head of finance and administration for a group of companies
in the leisure industry.
CASEY LIM
VIDEO & SOUND DESIGNER
A co-founder and Joint Artistic Director of Checkpoint Theatre, Casey is a computer
science graduate who has been designing and creating digital art, video and audio since
1997.
His explorations with the digital medium on stage have resulted in many collaborations,
which include: Ashes (Singapore Arts Festival 2000), Occupation (Singapore Arts
Festival 2002), Poppy Dot Dreams, Instant is a Millennium (Gala Opening of Singapore
Arts Festival 2003), Opiume (Singapore Arts Festival 2004 and Hong Kong New Vision
Arts Festival 2004). In 2005, a part of the production Instant is a Millennium toured with
the Singapore Chinese Orchestra to London and Newcastle, playing in Barbican Centre
and The Sage Gateshead respectively.
Also a theatre director, Casey has always staged works that were written and created by
local artists. These include the 1997 staging of Kuo Pao Kun’s Lao Jiu; Dick Lee’s
musical Beauty World (1998 – for the President’s Star Charity Show broadcasted live on
TV; as well as the stage version in the same year); Got to Go… Play till Dawn (1998)
which was a 12-hour overnight theatre festival on Fort Canning Hill featuring more than
30 young artists, actors and directors; Chong Tze Chien’s Pan Island Expressway
(1999) which received the Life! Theatre Award for Best Production; Huzir Sulaiman’s
Atomic Jaya (2003), Michael Chiang’s Private Parts (2004); and recently, Chay Yew’s A
Language of Their Own (2006) to much popular and critical acclaim.
Casey is also the creative director of the Object Theatre in the upcoming Army Museum.
KEN IKEDA
SET & LIGHTING DESIGNER
Ken’s extensive experience in the theatre scene includes work on multiple crossdisciplinary projects for various groups and artists in Tokyo, Kyoto, London, Berlin,
Hamburg, Oslo, Copenhagen, Jakarta, Bandung, Hong Kong, Perth, Adelaide, and
Melbourne. His work in the theatre includes set and lighting design, directing,
dramaturgy and on rare occasions, performing.
This is Ken’s second collaboration with Checkpoint Theatre. In 2006, Ken worked with
director Casey Lim on Chay Yew’s critically acclaimed A Language of Their Own. For
his efforts on Language, Ken received the Best Lighting Design at the 7th Straits Times
Life! Theatre Awards 2007.
Other credits for Singapore include: Spell #7’s Duets 2 (2005) and Duets 3 (2006) in
collaboration with Miss Piggy.
ANDY LIM CHUNG KEAT
TECHNICAL MANAGER
Andy graduated from La Salle-SIA College of the Arts, and is a Singapore-based
Lighting Designer and Technical Manager. He has attended the Broadway Master Class
2006 in New York. He has designed for various theatre and dance companies as well as
colleges in Singapore and Malaysia.
Andy has toured Europe as a Production Electrician/Follow Spot with Italian production
company, Change Performing Art, which presented ila galigo and St Anthony, directed
by Robert Wilson. In Asia he has toured with Little Asia Dance Network as Lighting and
Technical Director. He worked on two Asian Regional tours with British Theatre
Playhouse as a Lighting Designer on Private Lives directed by David Warwick and A
Bedfull of Foreigners, directed by John Nolan.
He has also worked as an Assistant Lighting Designer with Tommy Wong in Beijing on
the musical Sound of Light and Shadow. Together with Psyche Chui, a Senior Lecturer
in Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, he co-designed lights on Trash, directed by
Li Xie.
Besides lighting design and technical management, he works very closely with
COLLECTIVE mayhem to create new works and has performed in the works of Zai
Kuning, Jamie Redfern, Lim Fei Sheng, and Ivan Heng, among others.
GRACE LOW
PRODUCTION & STAGE MANAGER
In her career as a stage manager, Grace has taken on various roles in the production
team, working on productions by local theatre companies such as Action Theatre,
Drama Box, Singapore Repertory Theatre and The Necessary Stage.
Her stage management credits include Theatreworks’ The Flying Circus Project (2004);
Boxing Day: A Tsunami Project (2005) by The Necessary Stage; The Admiral’s Odyssey
(2005) by Action Theatre; The Ugly Duckling (2005, 2007, & Dubai Season 2007), The
Gingerbread Man (2006) by SRT’s The Little Company; Animal Vegetable Mineral
(2005) by CAKE Theatrical Productions; A Twist of Fate (2005) by SRT; Baba Nyonya
Mari-Go-Round (2006) by The Main Wayang Company; A Language Of Their Own
(2006) by Checkpoint Theatre; Man Of Letters (2006) with Stage Two, a division of
Singapore Repertory Theatre, as part of the National University of Singapore’s
Centennial Celebrations; Singapore Lyric Opera’s The Marriage Of Figaro (2006).
STANLEY NG
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER
Currently studying Theatre Arts in LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts, Stanley has been
actively involved in local theatre for the past 2 years, experiencing different production
roles including stage management, crewing and wardrobe.
He has dressed actors in Man Of Letters, assistant stage managed in The Marriage Of
Figaro, stage managed in A Nation In Concert, follow-spotted in Little Shop of Horrors,
and has just finished his second attempt in stage managing for 251.