Songs for a New World

Songs for a New World was the first musical written by Jason Robert Brown.  Basically a song cycle, it concerns characters looking for new directions in their lives.

For this staging by local theatre group Theatre Lab Productions, Director Gavin Low introduced the role of a writer who typed out the stories of the characters.

Without a coherent storyline, the focus would be on the songs.  They turned out to be good tunes, and were beautifully arranged by Joanne Ho.  The 4 actors:

Playwrights' Boot Camp

This is an initiative by The Theatre Practice to groom more Chinese playwrights for Singapore theatre.  This year, Huang Shhuai, Su Chun Ying and Wang Liansheng were put under the spotlight.  They were given tight deadline to come up with a script, and the actors were given 6 hours to rehearse. 

The evening that I saw the "final" product, I found the work to be of good standards, and deserved to be developed further.

Hopefully more Chinese language playwrights could be discovered through this programme.

Review: Family Duets, Spell # 7

It is rare to see a family acting together on stage.  Spell #7's Paul and Kaylene Tan got their 2 girls and Kaylene's mother to appear on the Esplanade Theatre Studio stage for their latest production Family Duets.

The play was to "understand how life's big questions are present in the seemingly small and ordinary world of the family".  In certain respects, it worked - the interaction between Paul and the girls, Eleanor Song's account of her life. 

I did not really understand the lhe last segment, World Condo.  Probably I was getting a bit restless during the second half, where the direction of the production was a bit muddled.

A good attempt, maybe some tightening of the play would help.

Sundown 2013

The Sundown run has been around for a few years and this was the first time I participated in it.  The idea of running at midnight was something new.

 From the moment that I stepped onto the train, I saw more and more people (with their running gear) heading towards the Promenade MRT Station and towards the F1 Pit Building.

Not a fit runner, I entered the 10 km race.

The route started from the pit building, past the Nicol Highway, turned towards the former People's Association Building and back to the starting point.

The route was generally ok, except at a few areas where there was a human traffic jam.  This was partly due to construction work along the way.

I managed to complete it within 1 hour 29 minutes.  Hopefully I could lower it to 1 hr 15 minutes next time round.