If a picture paints a thousand words, what tale will it tell?
Paintings by some of the most influential 20th-century artists have inspired a collection of new plays and a new musical created by a group of young Singapore playwrights, directors, performers and composers. Collectively called Painted Stories, these new works are presented by ACTION Theatre in conjunction with Singapore Arts Festival 2000.
The whole concept came about because we wanted to explore the process of creating a springboard. With that starting point, we approached several people to come on board the project. Some are those we've discovered during The First 42 Theatre Festival last year and some are young independent artists whose works have come to our attention.
We thought that a project of this nature would be a good way of bringing them together to create new works for Singapore theatre. It also allows us to continue the process of "green housing" of new talents and new works at 42 Waterloo Street.
Although the creative team for Painted Stories was given carte blanche to pick any art form - paintings, sculptures, poems or even origami - as their inspiration, all of them eventually came back proposing to create plays out of paintings. All the paintings they have chosen happened to be paintings of women.
Director: Tan Boon Hui
Production Designer: Thoranisorn Pitikul
Lighting Designer: Suven Chan
Production Manager: Tan Lay Hoon
Sound Designer: He Yin
Hairstylist: Lynn Leong
Production Assistant: Pebble Tan
Front of House: Glenda Wong
Stage Manager: Leo Pui Fung, Chua Puay Lee
Stage Assistant/ Lighting Operator: Zizi Azah Mayid
(Source: ACTION Theatre Programme)