I didn't win anything...

But I got to pick up the trophy for Ka Fai who got Best Multimedia for Reservoir.


He's in the UK filming stuff for Diaspora (TheatreWorks people never attend the thing anywayz), so I went up, talked about what a great guy he is to work with and that he should be recognised as a director as well as as a multimediator, and then exhorted everyone to watch his upcoming Revolution Per Minute (23 to 25 April).

Ng Tze Wei got Best Set Design for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles"! And he deserves it. Seriously, that man can spin straw into gold.

Life! Theatre Awards Nominations 2009

I've been nominated for Best Script for "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles"!



It's also got noms for Best actor (Rehaan Engineer), Best set (Ng Tze Wei) and best costume (Moe Kasim, with later modifications by directors Christina Sergeant and Ivan Heng). "Reservoir" is also nominated for Production of the Year and Best Sound Design (Chong Li-Chuan) and Best Multimedia (Choy Ka Fai).

This time I'm sure I won't get the award myself: hot favourites for both Best Script and Best Production are the fabulous "Gemuk Girls" and "Temple". We might win some technical stuff, though.

The article came out on Sat 19 March, when I was in Italy; that's why I didn't know the news was released yet. (I knew about the noms ages ago, though.)

Here's the full list for your perusal, with productions I was involved in italicised. Prize presentation ceremony on Monday.

Production of the Year:

* Gemuk Girls (The Necessary Stage)
* House of Sins (Dramabox)
* Reservoir (Theatreworks)
* Temple (Cake)
* The King Lear Trilogy (Ho Tzu Nyen)

Best Director:

* Natalie Hennedige (Temple)
* Li Xie (House of Sins)
* Christina Sergeant (The Hypochondriac)
* Alvin Tan (Gemuk Girls)
* Wong May Lan (The Soldier & His Virtuous Wife)

Best Script:

* Natalie Hennedige (Temple)
* Li Xie (House of Sins)
* Ng Yi-Sheng (The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles)
* Jean Tay (Boom)
* Haresh Sharma (Gemuk Girls)

Best Actor:

* Rehaan Engineer (The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles)
* Najib Soiman (Gemuk Girls)
* Noor Effendy Ibrahim (National Language Class)
* Peter Sau (House of Sins)
* Tay Kong Hui (House of Sins)

Best Supporting Actor:

* Oliver Chong (Flare)
* Najib Soiman (Temple)
* K. Rajagopal (The King Lear Project)
* Darius Tan (The Soldier & His Virtuous Wife)
* Sebastian Tan (Snow White & The Seven Dwarves)

Best Actress:

* Fanny Kee (Boom)
* Jo Kwek (Moon Story)
* Noorlinah Mohamed (Gemuk Girls)
* Yeo Yann Yann (National Language Class)

Best Supporting Actress:

* Goh Guat Xian (Flare)
* Li Xie (Temple)
* Judy Ngo (The Vagina Monologues)
* Susan Tordoff (The Office Party)
* Emma Yong (Shanghai Blues)

Best Ensemble:

* Bilik Ahmad (Teater Ekamatra)
* Drift (Dramabox)
* First Light (Toy Factory)
* Own Time Own Target (Wild Rice)
* The Hypochondriac (young & Wild)

Best Sound Design:

* Bang Wenfu (The Hypochondriac)
* Chong Li-Chuan (Reservoir)
* Philip Tan (Temple)
* Zing O Drum Group (Death of a Hero)
* Zizi Azah (Above us only sky)

Best Lighting Design:

* Fita Helmi (Above us only sky)
* Andy Lim (House of Sins)
* Lim Woan Wen (Pinocchio’s Complex)
* Suven Chan (Temple)
* Yo Shao Ann (Shanghai Blues)

Best Multimedia Design:

* Choy Ka Fai (Reservoir)
* Loo Zihan (Gemuk Girls)
* Brian Gothong Tan (Temple)
* Tan Kai Syng (The Vagina Monologues)

Best Set Design:

* Eucien Chia (Shanghai Blues)
* Claudio Girardi (Das Experiment)
* Wong Chee Wai (House of Sins, Apocalypse Live!, The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles)

Best Costume Design:

* Moe Kasim (Beauty World, The Enchantment of Sangkuriang, The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles, Snow White and The Seven Dwarves)
* Natalie Hennedige (Temple)

My books are now available at Shakespeare & Co.

Yep, the famous bookstore in Paris - You can just drop off two copies and they'll keep them in the catalogue (it's on consignment, though, so you'll have to travel back there to get the money if anyone buys it).

"last boy" is there, and so is "Eating Air". Alvin Pang dropped his books off there too. It's 37 rue de la Bûcherie, near Place St. Michel, within walking distance of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. What joy.

I'm back from Turin! (Dream 230309)

And I've lost my Sony Ericsson handphone charger. Anyone know where I can get a replacement?

Also, I keep on dreaming of alternative versions of "Slumdog Millionaire". Highlights of this afternoon's version:

Dev Patel somehow had his left arm chopped off, was half-blinded and left with festering skin in the Mumbai streets of swarming flies. A kindly Australian lady took pity on him and fed him a piece of watermelon on the floor. With every piece of fruit she put in his mouth, his body changed into a different, patterned, psychedelic neon colour.

Later in the show, the gameshow compere refused to give him the prize, so he jumped out the window and chanced upon a pink Live Aid float to support the Maldives. When the viewers emerged the next morning, he was using it to become a glam rocker with Lavita accompanied by a press-ganged gospel chorus of blondes, all singing the theme to the upcoming movie version of Alan Moore's "Promethea".

Slumdog Millionaire is overrated.

But Dev Patel is beautiful:



Unfortunately, the only naked shots there are of him are from when he was like, 15 or 16 and hadn't even started shaving yet. I suppose it's a good thing that I simply don't find those a turn-on.

I'm not even saying he's talented: the Bollywood dance sequence at the end of Slumdog is boring compared to stuff even a munjen like me has casually seen, and I'm not convinced that his role here was very challenging. But boy, can he smile. <3 <3 !!!

In other news, recently interviewed the Indigo Girls (Amy Ray asked to read my plays after she found out I was a playwright!!!!) and am flying off for Italy tonight.

Yes, my priorities are skewy for this blog. Imagine if I were straight and I was posting pictures of sexy ladies on my site. Who'd take me as a serious poet then?

I'm on p93 of Men's Folio, March '09!

It's weird to be in a magazine where every single other person is sexier than you.

Tech/punk videos from BoingBoing

Because when I have deadlines, I blog to procrastinate.

I'm going to Italy for World Poetry Day!

There's a bilingual Singapore/Italy poetry anthology called "Double Skin" that Alvin Pang and Tiziano Fratus edited. Pang, Teng Qian Xi and Toh Hsien Min are going too, with Ethos publisher Fong Hoe Fang to shepherd us around.

Will probably be leaving on the night of the 18th, and I should thereafter be in:

Cuneo, 19 marzo 2009 (h. 6.00 pm), L'Ippogrifo Bookstore;
Torino, 21 marzo 2009 (h. 5.00 pm), Circolo dei Lettori.

And coming back by the 23rd. Can't wait!

If Only.

My father is 60 years old today. Why do I never blog about the important stuff?

"The Cane", by Allan Ahlberg

Was recently assigned to write about children's poetry for World Poetry Day. Ended up checking out a compendium by one of my first favourite writers, Allan Ahlberg (author of the Jolly Postman and the Happy Family Series, doncha know.)

Anyhow, he loses none of his charm with age and perspective. Here's one poem that should resonate with Singaporeans:

The Cane

The teacher
had some thin springy sticks
for making kites.

Reminds me
of the old days, he said;
and swished one.

The children
near his desk laughed nervously,
and pushed closer.

A cheeky girl
held out her cheeky hand.
Go on, Sir!

said her friends.
Give her the stick, she’s always
playing up!

The teacher
paused, then did as he was told.
Just a tap.

Oh, Sir!
We’re going to tell on you,
the children said.

Other children
left their seats and crowded round
the teacher’s desk.

Other hands
went out. Making kites was soon
forgotten.

My turn next!
He’s had one go already!
That’s not fair!

Soon the teacher,
to save himself from the crush,
called a halt.

(It was
either that or use the cane
for real.)

Reluctantly,
the children did as they were told
and sat down.

If you behave
yourselves, the teacher said,
I’ll cane you later.

The irony is that I'm reading this right next to "Burden of Ashes" by Justin Chin, in which he describes how his Singaporean and Malaysian relatives and neighbours used to punish him and other children by caning them on their tongues and forcing them to eat their vomit. Yay for Asian values.

Date Update

Potential Boyfriend #1: turns out he's already attached.

Potential Boyfriend #2: gets huffy when I flirt with him using sexual language via SMS. Also has his own weird logic for refusing to sleep with me.

What does it say about me that I'm not actually upset by this, but just a little pissed? That I'm becoming mature, or just that I'm too busy to have a boyfriend anyway?

Feb 2009 texts

Very little cinema this month, and mostly short books - but a whole fuckload of theatre.

*POETRY*
+Mark Wallace’s “Temporary Worker Rides the Subway”
+Sherman Alexie’s “The Business of Fancydancing”
Robert Yeo’s “A Part of Three”

*FICTION*
Ming Cher’s “Spider Boys”
+Philip Ardagh’s “Dreadful Acts”

*DRAMA*
Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House”
+Caryl Churchill’s “drunk enough to say i love you?”
+William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker”

*NON-FICTION*
+Carl Jung and Carl Kerényi’s “The Science of Mythology”
+Karen Armstrong’s “The Bible: A Biography”
+Carl A. Trocki’s “Singapore: Wealth, power and the culture of control”
+“that we may dream again”, ed. Fong Hoe Fang

*LEGEND*
+Alexander McCall-Smith’s “The Girl Who Married a Lion”
+Penguin Epics’ “Siegfried’s Murder”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
Zizi Azah Abdul Majid’s “Fatimah and Her Magic Socks”
+Chris Ware’s “Acme Novelty Library V. 19”

*PERFORMANCES*
Centre Stage Productions’s “Teechers”
+Action Theatre’s “Singapore Love Letters”
Bani Haykal’s “The Unpressionist”
+Zuni Icosahedron’s “Tears of Barren Hill”
+STAGES’s “Dark Knuts: Welcome To Avenue Quantum”
Jocelyn Chua’s “Love Song for an Island”
+Zebra Crossing’s “What the Butler Saw”
Buds Theatre’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”
+The Necessary Stage’s “Past Caring”
+The Stage Club’s “The Female Odd Couple”

*EXHIBITIONS*
Chong Yan Hong, Clement Liang and Maisor Sidek’s “It Is Like This”
+Chiew Sien Kuan’s “Warm Machine”
+Raymond Yap’s “Within”

*FILMS*
+“Look Around You” Series 1
Liew Seng Tat’s “Flower in the Pocket”