Thursday 26 March 2015

furthest north, deepest south



furthest north, deepest south

Wow - was it only weeks ago that we sat in a circle at LT13 to do our first reading of the script together? I never did expect for us to mesh together so well as a theatre company, which, you know, can be quite the rare occurrence when tempers flare and stress hits an all-time high as we move towards production week. One of the nicest things that came out of the play was the cast and crew, whom I wouldn't have gotten so close to if not for this play. It is quite comforting to be surrounded by such an eclectic mix of personalities where absolutely nothing is construed as weird and you can be as crazy as you wanted to be. We were pretty insane - especially during those days where rehearsals were at least 8 hours long and went completely mental. As a group, we get quite a lot of double-takes and stares cause we're mofo loud and noisy but it's okay, cause we don't give a shit. 

After months of hard work, we devised and staged 'Furthest North, Deepest South' by Chong Tze-Chien at UCC Dance Studio. Seriously thank you to all those who came and supported us, even if some of the feedback we got from the audience was: 'what the fk did I just watch?' Special thanks to my spirit animal, Amanda See, who was the only one who came down to watch just for me. 

It was pretty nerve-wrecking because you had all these names in the Singapore theatre industry present in the audience to watch our graduate play. Also, the black-box setting is extremely intimate which means you can see everyone's faces up close. I thought I would freak out but for some unknown reason, I didn't. This is my first time as a lead actor in a very emotional stage play whereby about 80% of the lines were mine. Everyone's confidence in me really gave me the ability to believe that I could pull it off. My director left me a three-word message that said, "You got this." and he spoke to me that he strongly felt that I should find further opportunities in the theatre field, as a performer or if not, at the very least someone in performance studies. I'm very thankful that I had the chance to do this, this role really pushed myself as an actor and having gone through that, I feel like I could do this for the rest of my life. 

I'm pretty sure I gave the performance of my lifetime, thus far, during the opening show. I nailed the parts where I always had a bit of a problem. I didn't do as well on Sunday but managed to improvise on the spot when cues went completely haywire. 

When the play ended, I didn't linger because there was nobody I knew in the audience so I headed straight to the dressing room. On my way, there were professors who congratulated me for doing a good job and even overheard strangers talking about my performance, one of them even came up to tell me that I gave a very impressive performance. All this meant more to me because unlike friends, they weren't obliged to praise me or anything so wow, highlight of my theatre career thus far. 

Really want to thank the cast - wen, sofi, soonie, wally, lx, elaine, val, rebekah; SMs - renee and theresa; multimedia dude - shaggy; lighting designer - liting; producer nora and director felipe for being such a great bunch to work with. Even if this is a one-time thing, I do hope I can work with you guys again in the future. 

Our graduate Theatre Studies play production has finally come to an end. 




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