Singapore gay theatre

Singapore gay theatre refers to LGBT-themed plays produced and performed in Singapore.

=Introduction=
 * See also: Singapore gay censorship

It was only in the second half of the 1980s that gay writers started to explore the hitherto taboo area of homosexuality in their works. The licencing officials, the Media Development Authority, however, was not quite ready so in 1988, 3 plays with gay themes were banned from being performed. These were Eleanor Wong's "Jackson on a Jaunt", Chay Yew's "As if He Hears" and Russell Heng's "Lest The Demons Get To Me". The first two plays were subsequently staged in 1989/1990 after negotiations with the authority. The third was staged in 1992 after Singapore's culture policy was liberalised by her new Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong.

=Theatre Companies=

The following theatre companies have been active in staging plays which examine LGBT issues:

The Necessary Stage Ltd

 * Marine Parade Community Building, 278 Marine Parade Road, #B1-02, Singapore 449282. Artistic Director: Mr. Alvin Tan. Tel: 6440 8115 Fax: 6440 9002 Email: admin@necessary.org.
 * A major theatre company which produced Mardi Gras and Top or Bottom.
 * It has existed for more than a decade, its history recently documented in the book Ask Not: The Necessary Stage in Singapore by social activists Dr. Tan Chong Kee and Tisa Ng.

Action Theatre Ltd

 * 42 Waterloo Street, Singapore 187951. Artistic Director: Ekachai Uekrongtham. Tel: 6837 0842 Fax: 6837 0843 Email: info@action.org.sg.
 * Straits Times' Life! theatre award winner for gay-affirmative plays such as Autumn Tomyam, and producers of the movie Beautiful Boxer.

Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble

 * 15A/B Smith Street, Singapore 058929. Artistic Director: Goh Boon Teck Programme Director: Justina Wong Tel: 62221526 Fax: 62216285 Email: toyfactory@mail.com.
 * A leading Chinese-English bilingual drama company and another Life! theatre award winner, tremendously and publicly gay-affirmative.
 * It produced Bent, staged and translated Beautiful Thing, wrote the original script for White Sails Over Blue Blue Sea and East Side Story on the love between two ah beng gangsters.
 * Its latest offerings were Porcelain by acclaimed Singaporean playwright Chay Yew and Spirits 'Yao Jing', a novel interpretation of Chinese opera.
 * It provided immense assistance to Threesixzero Productions in its production of a well-balanced documentary for MediaCorp TV on Channel U entitled 'Do homosexuals have space for their activities?' as part of the 'Very Penetrating Insight' series in 2005.

The Fun Stage

 * Tanglin Post Office PO Box 412 Singapore 921414. Artistic Co-director: Benny Lim. Tel/ Fax: 6225 0501 Email: funstage@thefunstage.org

W!ld Rice Ltd

 * Funan Centre. Former address: 3A Kerbau Road, Singapore 219142. Company Manager: Doris Lee. Artistic Director: Ivan Heng. Tel: 6292 2695 Fax: 6292 2249 Email: ivanheng@pacific.net.sg.

W!ld Rice had its funding cut in 2011, presumably for producing too many LGBT plays. It later secured funding from Man investments.

=Productions=

The following are some of the local theatre productions which have featured cross-dressing or LGBT themes:

Before 2001
In 1988, Theatreworks tried to stage Chay Yew's Ten Little Indians and Eleanor Wong's Jackson on a Jaunt. Both were plays on HIV/AIDS, featuring sympathetic gay male characters. In response, the Ministry of Community Development withdrew its funding, outraged that homosexuality might be put forward as "a natural and acceptable form of sexuality".

In 1991, Dramabox presented Another Tribe by Otto Fong Yong Chin, Singapore's first Mandarin-language play to be given an R21 rating as it contained stories about gays youths and their love stories, including a relationship between an older and a younger man.

Also in 1991, Akka (அக்கா; literally "elder sister"; also slang for transgender woman) was written, directed and produced by G Selvanathan. It was the only queer-themed Singaporean Tamil play of the 20th century. Selvanathan was just out of army, walking down Serangoon Road in the vicinity of Desker Road when a friend asked him, "Why would you not want to do a drama about people like us?" This led him to create Akka in 1991, a play about a Tamil transwoman, based on conversations and interviews with members of the community. The work was presented at The Substation as part of Fourplay, a quadruple bill of short Tamil plays by Ravindran Drama Group. All the works dealt with social issues, so it was not actually all that shocking. Many people were deeply moved and there was great press coverage. The censors did not cause any trouble. The National Arts Council (NAC) did, but Selvanathan could not remember what. The thing that hurt him, however, was when the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) decided to telecast all the plays in the production except for his. It did not matter that theatre audiences accepted it. Transgender lives were not an appropriate topic for television.

In 1992, Theatreworks produced Tan Tarn How's work, The Lady of Soul and her Ultimate S-Machine, whose madcap political and sexual contents included a passionate gay love affair between a Minister of State and a senior civil servant. That year, the transgender community became a focus of attention in Russell Heng's Lest The Demons Get to Me and Michael Chiang's extremely popular comedy Private Parts.

And in 1993, lesbian theatre came into its own - Ovidia Yu's iconic Three Fat Virgins Unassembled featured a repressed dyke in its array of dissatisfied Singapore women, and Eleanor Wong's Mergers and Accusations presented the lesbian lawyer Ellen - the future star of a trilogy of lesbian plays, Invitation to Treat.

Local theatre presented an opportunity for Singaporeans to encode pro-gay messages into their productions, while being able to publicly disclaim a confessional side to their works - after all, many of these queer plays were indeed written by straight playwrights. Singapore's government had decided to invest in Singapore's cultural scene, yet by its nature, the theatre was always a space for outsiders of society, where genders could change in the dressing room in a puff of powder. No wonder the late Senior Minister of Education Tay Eng Soon desperately pleaded in a 1992 speech, "By all means, let our 'cultural desert' bloom. But please let the blossoms be beautiful and wholesome!"

M Butterfly
The internationally acclaimed theatre piece by Chinese-American playwright David Hwang about a transvestite male opera star’s deceptive seduction of an unsuspecting French male diplomat in China was a watershed in more ways than one. It was staged during the 1990 Singapore International Arts Festival in the wake of the proscription of 3 gay plays just 2 years earlier, probably to symbolise newly-appointed Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's vision of a "kinder and gentler Singapore". It also marked the first instance of total nudity in Singapore theatre. The impact was heightened by the local media which, habitually sensitised to the political climate, highlighted members of the political elite seated in the front row taking in the spectacle with cultured nonchalance.

The Swimming Instructor
Written by award-winning director Desmond Sim, it was first staged in 1999 in Singapore. The play has been described as a modern love triangle where a poor little rich girl and a workaholic professional young man fall in love with the same 'sexually-ambiguous' hunk – a swimming instructor.

Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1
Written by then 23 year old Alfian Sa'at in the year 2000, Dreamplay unfolds within the structure of an allegory, loosely adapted from Swedish playwright August Strindberg's A Dream Play (1901). The goddess Agnes, daughter of the god Indra, comes to Singapore on a mission to save mankind. She discovers, with the help of the everyman Boy, that her terrestrial purpose is to put gay men back on the straight and narrow. The work comes with raucous gags and easy laughs, and Alfian's writing is gilded with a wide-eyed hopefulness and a raw lyricism that mixes gleeful camp and brash, in-your-face humour with rather straightlaced philosophising.

Dreamplay drops in on several points in Singapore's history, zig-zagging haphazardly from a gay club to a pair of coolies in 19th-century Nanyang to two fugitives dodging the Japanese in World War II. Agnes attempts to correct these errant men (or so she believes) in heavy-handed ways that reek of her guileless naivete. It is a clever, if showy, dramatic device, joining a host of other deliberately flashy flourishes that include action in slo-mo, nudge-nudge wink-wink puns and allusions (an anti-Japanese force is dubbed Force 302, referencing the Singapore Armed Forces' Category 302 said to be set aside for gay members of the army), and enough pop culture references to leave you sated for weeks. The play then swings in the opposite direction at its close, taking on a heavy, over-didactic air as it instructs the viewer to love and accept one's self.

It was restaged by W!ld Rice at Lasalle College of the Arts', Flexible Performance Space on Saturday, 6 July 2013.

The Gunong Sayang Association's Peranakan plays
The matriarch in most Peranakan plays is played by a man, akin to theatre in Shakespearean times. Nyonya women were not encouraged to perform in front of an audience.

The most popular male cross-dressing matriarch to have performed in these plays was GT Lye, whose baju panjangs were made by Aljunied Brothers at Arab Street.

Kenny Chan is a comedic performer from Melaka who has also played the matriarch role and is known for what some consider rather crude stand-up comedy acts. Chan was most recently seen as Romeo in the TV12 series, "The Ways of the Matriarch".

Examples of Peranakan plays which featured a male cross-dressing matriarch include:


 * Menyesal (Regret)
 * Buang Keroh, Pungot Jernih (Let bygones be bygones)
 * Zaman Sekarang (These modern times)

An occasional orchid
From 17 April to 13 May 2001, the transgender play by Ivan Heng and Chowee Leow entitled "An occasional orchid" was staged at The Room Upstairs, 42 Waterloo Street,.

Shakespeare's R&J
In May 2001, the Singapore Repertory Theatre produced "Shakespeare's R&J", directed by Tony Petito. It was a revisionist version of Romeo and Juliet in which all the roles were played by men.

Abuse suxx!!!
In October 2001, The Necessary Stage staged a play called "Abuse Suxx!!!" which featured a scene in which the 2 male leads kissed each other. It also starred Singapore's iconic cross-dressing comedian, Kumar.

Beautiful thing
From 25 January to 24 February 2002 with occasional breaks, theatre company Toy Factory staged a Singaporean adaptation of the British play by Jonathan Harvey entitled "Beautiful thing" at the Toy Factory Theatrette, 17A Smith Street. Directed by Beatrice Chia, it told the story of 2 teenage boys finding love and the prejudice that not only exists in laws, but in people's hearts.

From 21 to 31 March 2002, Livid Room Productions, a feminist theatre company, staged a lesbian play entitled "Stop Kiss" at the Toy Factory Theatrette, 17A Smith Street. It tells the story of Callie (Adelina Ong) and Sara (Esther Yap) who find themselves falling in love after a string of heterosexual relationships. When their courtship culminates in a public kiss, they become victims of a hate crime. While Sara lies in a coma in hospital, Callie's finds herself questioning her identity and her faith in their relationship.

Shopping and fucking
Directed by Beatrice Chia, who won a DBS Life! Theatre Awards in 2001 for Best Director.

Invitation to treat
A month-long trilogy of plays performed at the Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel in April 2003. They were penned by acclaimed playwright and academic lawyer Eleanor Wong and produced by W!LD RICE, a professional theatre company founded by well-regarded Artistic Director Ivan Heng. Despite the stellar credentials of the artists involved in the production of the plays, it failed to secure any sponsorship, probably due to its lesbian theme. Despite this, it enjoyed an overwhelming response with 3 additional performance being added.

The three plays of Invitation To treat spanned 20 years in the life of their protagonist, Ellen Toh, following her journey towards self-discovery and self-actualisation. She was a smart, ambitious and hardworking lesbian lawyer who married her best friend in a 'marriage of convenience' that presented her with the best of both worlds– a socially respectable position, and a husband who accepted her sexual orientation.

The plays swept the audience along a unique and enjoyable journey, an Odyssey of insights which recounted the story of one member of an invisible minority who struggled with her sexuality and, over time, grew increasingly confident and self-aware, with more than a little help from her friends. Heng hoped that the LGBT community would relate to the plays which included 'insider' jokes and references that could only be fully appreciated by the gay community, with scripts that were not dumbed down to accommodate a straight audience. Owing to its lesbian theme, the producers experienced great difficulty in securing a corporate sponsor.

Mergers & accusations and Wills & secession ran as a double bill from 2 to 6 April 2003.
 * Mergers & accusations examined personal choices and living in transition while dreaming of, hoping for, and wanting, the 'perfect' future.
 * Wills & secession explored the corridors of the past, and unravelled the bonds of family and faith in the face of disease and death.
 * Jointly & severably (world-premiered from 9 to 26 April 2003) laid bare the struggle for commitment, exploded the meaning of family, love and friendship, and the right of a minority to live and love honestly and fearlessly.

3 Men & A Boot
On 23 and 24 May 2003, 3 of Singapore's most talented theatre performers who also happened to by gay - Darius Tan, Gani Abdul Karim and Juwanda Hassim starred in the original musical production, "3 Men & A Boot" at the Victoria Theatre. It was about 3 guys trying to make it in a very tough and fast paced Singapore. With love, faith and hope as their guide they waddle through funny, touching and nonsensical moments...with a smelly boot offering some help.

Bent
From 25 July to 17 August 2003, Toy Factory presented "Bent" at The Attic, level 4, 21 Tanjong Pagar Road. It was an award-winning and groundbreaking play by Martin Sherman about the Nazi persecution of homosexuals, coming out and the struggle for gay pride.

Mardi Gras
From 13 to 17 August 2003, The Necessary Stage presented Harish Sharma's gay play, "Mardi Gras", at the Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel. The comedy was about a group of people wanting to organise Singapore's first Pride Parade. It starred well known local TV personalities including Hossan Leong, Jimmy T, VJ Rick Tan, with special guest appearances by Kumar and Irene Ang.

Beautiful Thing (in Chinese)
From 1 to 26 October, Toy Factory staged, at The Attic, the Mandarin production of Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful Thing starring local actors Scott Lei, Charmaine Ang, Ben Xiao, Darius Tan and Alicia Kim in Singapore for the second time.

Landmarks - Asian Boys Vol. 2
From 4 to 15 February 2004, W!ld Rice presented "Landmarks - Asian Boys Vol. 2" at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. Written by Alfian Sa'at and directed by Ivan Heng, the collection of eight short plays told the stories of the lives of gay men in Singapore set against a familiar backdrop of saunas, cruising spots, parties, coming out issues, sex, and the city.

Lovers' Words

 * Main article: Lovers' Words

"Lovers' Words" was a play directed by Richard Chua in February 2004. It was scripted by Qiu An Chen from Taiwan and starred Willy Lau, Scott Lei, Sarah Tng, Sabrina C and Jaff Fong.

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"What does it take to love in a homosexual reality? Perhaps, only a boy and girl will know as they come together to explore the intricacies of building a relationship. They live in a gay society with a plague looming large, and heterosexual reality being a taboo, love seems to be non-existent. In the end, sexual reformation seems to be the only solace they could find. R(A)-18 Partial nudity involved. Performed in Mandarin."

After submitting the script to MITA (Ministry of Information and the Arts) for approval, the regulatory body required some of the lines to be axed. The first scene where everybody was in G-strings had to be dropped.

Male-male kissing was also limited to 2 minutes after some negotiation by the director.

Not Guilty
From 12 to 22 May 2004, Singapore's iconic drag comedian, Kumar, acted in the play "Not Guilty" at Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel. The play, produced by Arts Central, directed by Alvin Tan and written by veteran playwright Haresh Sharma of The Necessary Stage was about Kumar's life, childhood, family, being Indian, career and living in Singapore.

Top or bottom
From 28 July to 1 August 2004, director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma of The Necessary Stage restaged 2003's glamourama "Mardi Gras" at the Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel with a new cast, script and sequel entitled "Top Or Bottom". The latter ran from 4 to 14 August, with breaks. The new cast included Paerin Choa, Jay Espano, and sitcom queens of Singapore, Irene Ang and Koh Chieng Mun. While Mardi Gras examind the issues faced by the Singapore gay community as a whole, Top Or Bottom looked at problems faced by the gay individual. Hossan Leong took the lead role of makeup artist Faith who had to deal with the untimely death of a friend. It lead Faith to question the way he has lived his life, including the choice he made long ago to come of the closet and set it on fire. "Mardi Gras" and "Top or Bottom" were part of the first ever Nation.04 Arts programme which included several other plays like the first Mandarin production of "Mergers and Wills" and art exhibitions.

Private parts
It took Singapore by storm when it premiered at the 1992 Singapore Arts Festival, generating a buzz that lasted well past its 2 sell-out seasons, both during the festival and its immediate rerun, when it played to an estimated audience of 20,000.



Many felt that Private Parts was popular playwright Michael Chiang’s best play to date; definitely, it was his most politicised. The man who defined Singapore comedy with runaway hits like Army Daze, Beauty World and Mixed Signals, surprised many with this pointed yet poignant piece of writing.

Pushing the envelope the way no other local production had ever done, Private Parts was a play many agree was ahead of its time. One gets involved with a talk-show host who soon finds out the true meaning of reality TV. One gets a glimpse of the brutality of media competition: how far would one go for higher ratings? Plus, for a nation of gawkers weaned on the night-time beauties of Bugis Street back in the 60s, here was an up-close peek into that mysterious world of drag queens. What more could one want from theatre in the rigid, pre-RA days of Singapore?

Hype aside, Private Parts made news because it was able to engross even the most conservative of audiences with its bittersweet (and unexpectedly moving) story about 3 transsexuals trying to find their place in life. Way before Hollywood was feted for daring to do the same by putting Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving in heels and makeup for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Not to mention Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes and John Leguziamo donning even bigger bouffants and bosoms in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything (1995).

The story: Briefly, a Star Search winner fronts a current-affairs talk show to improve ratings. His life turns upside down when he ends up in a sex-change clinic with 3 transsexuals. After befriending them, he tries to get them on his show.

Private Parts proved to be such an audience favourite that it was revived in 1995 for another run, this time including a Mandarin version (which starred Edmund Chen and the late comedian Hua Liang) as well!

And 12 years on, Michael Chiang’s much-acclaimed play returned to the Singapore stage for a limited season, to wow new audiences, and hopefully bring back some of its old supporters. The new, updated production had its run at the Esplanade Theatre from 28 July to 1 August 04.

Porcelain
From 7 to 17 April 2005, with breaks, Toy Factory Theatre Ensemble in collaboration with the Esplanade presented the eagerly awaited local debut of Singapore-born, Los Angeles-based playwright Chay Yew's "Porcelain" at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. The controversial R(A) play, which was bestowed the prestigious London Fringe Award for Best Play in 1992, followed a young Asian man's struggle to find himself in the face of homophobia and racism after shooting his lover in Bethnal Greens Tube station's cruisy toilet. It was directed by award-winning directors Goh Boon Teck and Beatrice Chia, and starred LIFE! Theatre Awards Best Actor nominees, Nelson Chia and Mark Richmond.

Boxing cabaret

 * A unique one-woman show on 17 and 18 June 2005 by Parinya Charoenphol, also familiarly known in Thai as Nong Thoom. The famous former Muay Thai (kickboxing) champion who stunned the world with her gender change invited the audience into her colourful world where strength meets beauty, fight meets dance and heart meets mind.

Spirits 'Yao Jing'

 * It world-premiered on 3 June 2005 at the Victoria Theatre. Written as a special dedication to Toy Factory's 15th anniversary and directed by award-winning director Goh Boon Teck, it recounted once upon 5,000 years ago when 5 ill-fated beauties were impeached for their tramped existence. Spirits unveiled 5 untold stories of Sai Jing Hua from the Qing dynasty, an infamous protitute, Bao Si from the Zhou dynasty, the concubine who never smiled, Lu Hou from the Han dynasty, the revengeful empress, Ya Zuan Ji from the Tang dynasty, a poetic priestess and Ke Shi Ming from the Ming dynasty, the Great Madam, all of whom were despised and condemned by Chinese historians.


 * Goh collaborated with playwright Xu Sheng Liang (China) and music composer Saidah Rastam (Malaysia) to reinterpret Chinese opera and its heritage in a different ensemble. Together, they breathed comtemporary life into traditional Chinese opera whilst retaining its beauty.


 * It was crafted as a musical, infusing 5 different forms of Chinese opera, namely Yue, Jing, Li Yuan, Huang Mei and Yu, with contemporary funk. No traditional opera musical instruments or props were employed in this unconventional fusion. Instead, there were 4 actors, 5 martial artistes, 7 musicians, 1 saxophonist and 5 genres of opera in this creative mix.


 * Spirits advanced Chinese opera a step forward, creating a new theatre platform for the younger generation. Multimedia effects and high-tech neon swords replaced traditional props. An outrageous wardrobe dazzled and a fascinating mobile stage transported the audience to another world.


 * The constantly challenged notion of masculinity in Asia has unfortunately led to the near extinction of opera female impersonators. Toy Factory proudly featured 5 of these professional 'Nan Hua Dan' from Singapore and China, which made the musical drama all the more gripping.

Quills
From 16 to 25 September 2005, theatre company Luna-id presented "Quills", a play about the Marquis de Sade in which its dashing lead actor, Reehan Engineer, displayed one hour of full-frontal male nudity, a first in Singapore. It was staged at the DBS Arts Centre, home of the Singapore Repertory Theatre, 20 Merbau Road, Robertson Walk.

Boys
A project by Richard Chua, after Lover's Words, about heterosexuals in a homosexual society. It was an extension of Chua's belief that life should be led honestly and truthfully. In his quest to further meditate on love between people (in this case, among 3 boys in their 20s), Chua embarked on this project to push his collaborators to work in a space where they had nowhere to go, but to clean.

Cleaning was an essential task that would bring these boys to the next phase of eternity. The story was about love - love that seemed to be defined differently by different people, with different perspectives, resulting in different outcomes. Each boy had a love story to tell.

A Language of Their Own
From 30 March to 9 April 2006, Checkpoint Theatre presented US-based Singaporean playwright Chay Yew's "A Language of Their Own" (RA18) at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. The play, which won the George and Elisabeth Marton Playwriting Award and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Award for Best Play starred actors Phin Wong and Koey Foo.

Let Me Entertain You!
From 12 to 15 April 2006, director Loretta Chen presented "Let Me Entertain You!", a production starring Darius Tan which featured songs from a myriad Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals, and riveting, risque and raunchy theatre at the Arts House's Play Den. Joining Darius onstage were veterans like Gerald Chew, Gani Karim, and Hatta Said, amongst others.

The Seven-Month Itch
From 8 to 12 November 2006, The Necessary Stage and Action for Aids presented an interactive play entitled "The Seven-Month Itch", written by Haresh Sharma and directed by Aidli 'Alin' Mosbit, with audience interaction facilitated by company artistic director Alvin Tan. Daniel Yeo and Timothy Nga played Daniel and Jason, 2 gay men who had been boyfriends for 7 months before the latter met a man in a club had unprotected sex with him. Audiences could interrogate actors (hotseating), suggest certain courses of action (playback theatre), or march in and replace the main character themselves to change a course of action (forum theatre).

Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol.3
From 11 to 29 July 2007, W!ld Rice presented "Happy Endings: Asian Boys Vol.3" (rated M18) at the Drama Centre Theatre, National Library. It was written by playwright/poet/social activist Alfian Sa'at, who in 2003 e-mailed Johann S. Lee, author of Singapore's first gay novel, "Peculiar Chris", soliciting his permission to adapt the novel into a theatre production which deals with what happens to the characters as they grow older, even creating an imaginary author as a character in the play. It starred an ensemble of both new and familiar faces including Lim Kay Siu, Karen Tan, Timothy Nga, Ben Seow, Pierre Goh and Hansel Tan.

Hitting (on) Women
Hitting (on) Women, a powerful psychodrama on the love between two women by author Ovidia Yu, was produced by ACTION Theatre and performed in full from 10 to 19 August 2007 at 8pm at The Room Upstairs, 42 Waterloo Street. The play was directed by Samantha Scott-Blackhall and starred actresses Janice Koh and Serene Chen (all of whom are not only straight, but also past winners of the Life Theatre Awards). Prices for the tickets were $30, $35 and $40 available from www.sistic.com.sg. Its website was www.action.org.sg.

A special matinee performance of the play on 11 August at 3pm was marked as an event in the IndigNation 2007 Pride Festival calendar. Yu herself confessed that it was her favourite piece among all the scripts she had written - which is quite a statement, considering that she had penned local classics like Three Fat Virgins Unassembled and A Woman on a Tree on a Hill, and still refuses to anthologise her work on the grounds of not finding enough she is proud of.

Yu's work had the strength to make the audience laugh and wince with pain in the space of a split-second, speaking with heartbreaking honesty on the troubled reality of many lesbian relationships today. Read in front of an audience of over 800 at the Esplanade Theatre, it easily won the first prize in Action Theatre's "Theatre Idols" competition for new plays.

The play is especially important because it dares to take on the hot-button issue of domestic violence in gay relationships, which - while it may not be politically correct to say so - remains a big problem in lesbian couplehood today, made worse by the fact that insufficient laws exist to protect its victims. Amazingly, Yu manages to make both her abusive and abused characters so likeable and empathetic, that the audience cannot help but be put in the same position as the heroine who finds it hard to break free from love for her own survival.

Read a review of the play by Kenneth Kwok on The Flying Inkpot:.

Death and Dancing
From 20 to 23 November 2008, Buds Theatre Company presented "Death and Dancing" at Play disco, 21 Tanjong Pagar Road. The funny, uplifting play, performed stand-up comedy style, was about 2 friends named Max and Max, a gay man and a lesbian woman (acted by Benjamin Wong and Rebecca Lee respectively) both struggling to define themselves against society's expectations.

Kumar: Stripped Bare and Standing Up
From 19 to 21 March 2009, Dream Academy presented 'Kumar: Stripped Bare and Standing Up' at the Esplanade Theatre. In a Fridae article shortly before the performance run and during the shows themselves, drag icon Kumar came out as a gay man for the very first time after denying the fact several times before.

From 8 to 25 July 2009, Wild Rice staged "Own Time Own Target" a double-bill of comedies at the Drama Centre. The dealt with the Singapore army and included a musical about a gay soldier.

From 6 to 8 August 2009, Leona Lo, possibly Singapore’s best known transsexual, performed her one-woman play, "Ah Kua Show" at The Substation. It was directed by Emeric Lau and was based on her 2007 memoir "From Leonard to Leona: A Singapore Transsexual's Journey to Womanhood", written over a course of 11 years. The book traces the major milestones in the 34-year-old PR consultant’s life from suffering a nervous breakdown while performing compulsory military service, surviving a suicide attempt at 19 to using his tuition money for her sexual reassignment surgery in Bangkok in 1997 whilst she was a first year student at the University of York in the UK. The play was Lo’s latest attempt to bring transgender issues to the forefront.

Can Change
By Haresh Sharma.

Family Outing
By Joel Tan.

Balek Kampong
By Haresh Sharma.

Mata Hati
By Robin Loon.

Tongues
By Jason Wee and Sean Tobin.

Bedok Reservoir
By Wesley Leon Aroozoo.

People
By Joel Tan.

Let's Get Back Together
By Kenneth Chia and Mark Ng.

The Way We Go
By Joel Tan.

Mass Hysteria
By Steph Chan et al.

Akka: The End
By Selva Avant.

With/Out
By Loo Zihan.

The Incredible Adventures of Border Crossers
By Ong Keng Sen.

Akka 3
By Selva Avant.

Hotel
By Alfian Sa'at and Marcia Van Der Straaten.

Hawa
By Jonny Jon Jon.

Ragnarok
By Andrew Koi Sutherland.

Counting
By Sabrina Dzulkifli.

GRIND
By Shar Pi'ee and Goh Boon Teck.

Long Weekend
By Kenneth Chia.

My Mother Buys Condoms
By Helmi Yusof.

I am LGB
A performance produced by Loo Zihan, commissioned by the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). It ran from 18 to 20 August 2016 from 7pm to 11pm at 72-13, the home of Theatreworks.

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Who am I? Am I my name? My Body? My Sex? My History? What State do I represent? Should I believe in the State? Perhaps I am propaganda for a State that does not yet exist. Or perhaps I am here to expropriate what can never be mine. Perhaps I should return to my home. Where is that? Where my father’s ashes were released, swallowed by the fish he fed every day? I ate that fish.

You are a performance artist. It is the 24th of January 1994. You teach contemporary art at a public university. One day, you receive an anonymous letter from your students. The letter calls for a boycott of your classes.

“If we are taught by him next year, we will not go to his classes. His teaching is too political and is about sensitive issues. He teaches performance art, which is now forbidden in Singapore, and we are quite right not to go.”

You are LGB. LGB is Lan Gen Bah. You were born in 1948. You are a Marxist. A scientist. An ideologue. A member of the government. A citizen of the State. You are Song Liling. You are Cheng Dieyi. You are Ray Langenbach. You are Loo Zihan. You are Lee Mun Wai. You are Shawn Chua Ming Ren. You are Bani Haykal. You are State power. An individual. An ISA (Ideological State Apparatus). A KPI (Key Performance Indicator). You are LGB, without the T. You are a meme. Propaganda. You are not yours alone; you are an idea demanding its own acceptance.

Pretty Butch
By Tan Liting Tan.

Detention Katong
Detention Katong was a musical comedy written by Selena Tan and produced by theatre company Dream Academy. Performed at the Esplanade Theatre, it was about bad girls who do good and included a lesbian character.  Synopsis: Amanda Chin is a straight ‘A’s student, teacher’s pet, and loved by all. One day, she gets herself sent to detention, and has never been happier. She is intent on showing us that good girls are not all good, and that bad girls can do good. Amanda’s mother, Linda, (Serene Chen, Public Enemy) who seems very secretive these days, sparks off this intrigue. The girls are led by Valerie Choo, Kimberly Chan, Melissa Gan, Natalie Yeap, Sharon Sum, Alyssa Lie, Munah Bagharib, and Inch Chua.

All this while, the girls are surrounded by a hotchpotch of teachers: The Discipline Mistress of Pain (Neo Swee Lin, Phua Chu Kang’s Ah Ma), a hotshot know-it-all Principal (Darius Tan, Monkey Goes West), the School Counsellor in need of counselling (Sebastian Tan a.k.a Broadway Beng®) and the worldly-wise Malay & PE teacher (Suhaimi Yusof, The Noose). As sure as the sun rises in the East, Katong is the hippest spot to be spotted one's your teenage years. However, these years are also one of the most challenging in life. One goes from Dimples to Pimples, Ponytails to Telling Tales, all while trying to be cool, or just pretending to follow the rules.

Lyrics for Detention Katong were written by Selena Tan (Dim Sum Dollies & Sing Dollar), with a team of music composers headed by Elaine Chan (Dim Sum Dollies, Monkey Goes West & Sing Dollar), Sarah Cheng-De Winne (Brand New), Dave Tan (Electrico) and Benjamin Kheng (The Sam Willows). 

Dinner
By Jonny Jon Jon. The play featured a married Muslim woman asking her lesbian girlfriend to marry her husband so they could be in a polygamous relationship. It was commissioned for Late Night Texting 2017 under Main Tulis Group.

Tompang
By Hazwan Norly. The play was overtly about two ex-lovers who were lesbian. Like "Dinner" by Jonny Jon Jon, it was commissioned for Late Night Texting 2017 under Main Tulis Group.

Tango
By Joel Tan.

Foreign Bodies
A 1 hour 15 minute intermissionless production by Eugene Tan (a.k.a. Becca D'Bus), it was performed from Thursday, 5 January 2017 to Saturday, 7 January 2017 at 8pm at the Esplanade Recital Studio for the 2017 M1 Fringe Festival. It asks what one does with a foreign body. One either removes it or gets used to it. Adjust, grow, and assimilate.

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In Singapore's march towards 6.9 million people - many of whom are imported — how do we make space for each other? Let's start by taking off our clothes! In trying to understand what might be a “new normal”, perhaps it is the expatriates who might have something unique to share.

A cast of all genders and bodies from the community in Singapore come together to form Singapore’s first diverse, politically progressive burlesque troupe! Produced and mentored by Eugene Tan and Madge of Honor, diva of high performance burlesque, they create a burlesque revue like no other. Everyone’s been an expat, except Madge, who is a Foreign Talent.

What do Foreign Bodies do? We take our clothes off.

SKIN IN SIN is a brand new burlesque troupe, birthed through this production, with an eye towards performing, thriving and making a (very naked) mark in Singapore. Endeavouring to be as diverse as possible, the multicultural members of Skin in SIN are, for Foreign Bodies, being drawn first from people who have lived some kind of expat experience—either returned Singaporeans, or people who were born elsewhere and now call Singapore home. In the future, Skin in SIN will expand its membership to include folks from all walks of life and a diversity of lived experience.

Potong
By Jonny Jon Jon. The play, produced by Teater Ekamatra, featured a male-to-female transgender character played by Fared Jainal.

13.13.13
By Shen Tan.

The Insiders
By Alfian Sa'at.

Faghag
A one-woman autobiographical musical play written by Pam Oei and directed by Ivan Heng, it was rated M18 by the IMDA. Presented by W!ld Rice during its Singapore Theatre Festival, the sold-out production ran from 19 July to 22 July 2018 at Lasalle College of the Arts's Flexible Performance Space.

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"Pam Oei likes gay boys. Gay boys like her too. She has always felt irresistibly drawn to them – even as a teenager, before she knew what the term ‘gay’ meant. Over the years, Pam’s adventures have included: coaxing gay boyfriends out of the closet, attending her first gay wedding in 2001, fighting to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code in 2007, and being the Countdown Queen at Pink Dot every year (though the job is less ‘queen’ and more ‘drill sergeant’!). This makes her a gold-star straight ally and a bona fide faghag.

Join Pam and the multiple characters she plays in this rainbow-coloured cabaret. Accompanied by maestro Julian Wong on the piano, Pam will tell jokes, share heart-warming tales and throw in a few torch songs for good measure. Along the way, she’ll demonstrate why she deserves the title of Singapore’s Number One Faghag!

When asked what inspired her to write the play, her maiden attempt at being a playwright, Oei said: “Being one of the biggest ‘Faghags’ in Singapore, I thought it would be good for me to write down my experiences of what it’s like. When I discovered when I was one. How I became one. How fun it’s been to be one. And also how 377A is still over our heads. I think it’s part of the Faghag’s job to examine that closely.”"

Kumar50
By Kumar.

Catamite
By Loo Zihan.

a line could be crossed and you would slowly cease to be
By Andrew Sutherland. It was performed at the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI).

Glorious, Monstrous, Hantu Tales from Singapore
By Cyril Wong et al.

Desert Blooms
By Ng Yi-Sheng.

2020
=See also=
 * Singapore gay censorship
 * Singapore gay films

=References=


 * 1 August 2006, Fridae article, "A look back on gay theatre in Singapore" by Ng Yi-Sheng.
 * A list of LGBT characters portrayed in Singapore theatre, posted by The Savage Circle on SiGNeL in June 2000:.

=External links=
 * The Flying Inkpot theatre and dance reviews:, - The Flying Inkpot was launched in 1996 to create an online platform for writing about the arts in Singapore. Despite being staffed by volunteers, the theatre wing has established itself as the longest-running theatre and dance review journal in Singapore, with over 800 reviews in its archive. It also provides comprehensive listings of productions, auditions and workshops.

=Acknowledgements=

This article was written by Roy Tan based on information published on Fridae, with some information contributed by Wikipedia users who are Singapore theatre aficionados and writer Ng Yi-Sheng.