THEATRE

Peter Sau
Mentor and Director of Wai?

Peter holds a Professional Diploma in Intercultural Theatre (Acting) from the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI), Singapore and currently teaches at the School of the Arts. As a recipient of the 2011 Young Artist Award conferred by the National Arts Council, he has directed Machine, Big Fool Lee, A Madwoman’s Diary, K and Herstory. As a performer, he has won the Life! Theatre Awards ‘Best Ensemble’ three times and was nominated ‘Best Actor’ once. In 2012, he wrote, directed and performed in a one-man show Tell Me When to Laugh and When to Cry as a tribute to his mentor, Kuo Pao Kun on his 10th death anniversary. Internationally, he has performed in Malaysia, Indonesia, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Hungary and Romania. He most recently performed in Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol.1 (Wild Rice), LIFT: Love Is Flower The (Theatreworks) and Art (Nine Years Theatre) and directed Square Moon, a play about detention without trial written by Wong Souk Yee, a former detainee and playwright.

Judy Au
Playwright

Judy Au discovered her love for acting at 13 years old, and has been involved in several productions ever since. She most recently co-wrote and acted in City Night Songs, a joint production by Checkpoint Theatre for NUS Arts Festival 2012. Wai? is her first play, written under the guidance of veteran playwright Huzir Sulaiman in 2013. Judy was also a vocalist in the NUS Jazz Band and a DJ in NUS Radio Pulze. She is currently a member of the improvisational comedy troupe, The Improv Company.

Click here to read a recent interview by Wallflowers with Judy Au.

Joanna Hioe
Playwright

Joanna Hioe is a young woman with a taste for adventure. As an undergraduate at the National University of Singapore (NUS), she had the opportunity to explore new terrain in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; Suzhou, China; Santiago, Chile; and Bangkok, Thailand.

The more she broadens her horizons, the more she finds that the contours of her world are defined by life's rituals, which serve hold to the universe in place - celebrations of life, death, and longings for what is beyond the perishable.

Candlelight celebrates all of these, remembering the ritual of storytelling on which Singapore was built. Candlelight has come a long way, from humble origins in a playwriting class under the tutelage of Huzir Sulaiman, to winning a runner-up title in the Trinity College London International Playwriting competition 2011. Most recently, it was staged as part of NUS Stage’s Chamber readings in January 2012. Joanna also co-founded Teater Dian, (“Candle Theatre”) which staged a Javanese-styled theatre experiment of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in July 2011.

Goh Koon Hui
Director (Candlelight)

Goh Koon Hui (吴坤辉) is a fourth-year Theatre Studies and Literature major at NUS. In his spare time, he writes, dances, acts and coaches theatre. Having written poetry since his Junior College days, he has also gone into scriptwriting in his freshman year. Since starting out in 2010, Koon Hui has been involved in various productions with various other drama groups such as NUS Thespis (B. in 2012), NUS Stage (Mind Games in 2010, Play! in 2013, me, now in 2013) and NUS Theatre Studies Department (Apes and Moths in 2012 and Family in 2013). He recently debuted at Lit Up 2013 with an interdisciplinary work, Echo, organised by Word Forward Private Limited. Play Out will be the first major production that he is directing and he looks forward to it.

Claudia Wong
Assistant Director (Wai?)

A masters candidate, researcher, event-organiser and budding theatre-maker, Claudia Wong (王颍琪) has combined theatre-related work into social science research that involves producing a youth-run community workshop “Theatre every Sunday” as part of her research. She had the honour of having her research in theatre supported by the National Arts Council Research and Development Grant as well as the Graduate Research Support Scheme from National University of Singapore. This was later presented at the Institute of British Geographers International Conference 2013 under the Children and Young People Research Group. She was also the Assistant Director in Global Youth Congress International and facilitated and director various youth-led forums and conventions such as the Global Youth Forum 2012 and ASEAN Youth Convention 2012/2013 as part of her passion in the development of young people. This directorial experience will give her a unique opportunity to finally develop creatively and have a deeper understanding of the praxis of theatre beyond academia.