Damon Chua is a New York-based playwright, poet, fiction writer and producer. Wang Liansheng is a Singaporean playwright and lawyer. In past // present, they showcase short works focusing on a male character's struggle with societal norms, from their past, and present.
Comprising two short plays from Best Foot Forward (first staged by ACTION Theatre in 1995), and A Letter To _______ (first produced by The Theatre Practice in 2013) along with two new short plays - Bonsai & Two Men Peeing - past // present promises an intimate, thoughtful and emotional examination of the male identity across time, language and space.
Please note: One of the five plays is presented in Mandarin with English subtitles.
Two generations of broadcasters and the radio silence between them.
NUS Stage gathers tokens of our world’s sights to present a time capsule to a live audience, before it is sent to the stars.
Fri, 7 Sep 8pm | Sat, 8 Sep 7.30pm
University Cultural Centre Dance Studio
Public: $25, NUS Students: $15
1 hour, 45 minutes, including a 15 minute intermission
Damon Chua & Wang Liansheng
Based in New York, Damon is a playwright, screenwriter and short fiction writer. Liansheng graduated with an LLB (Honours) degree from the National University of Singapore and is currently a Partner at M/s Bih Li & Lee LLP.
Based in New York, Damon is a playwright, screenwriter and short fiction writer. His plays Film Chinois and Incident at Hidden Temple have been produced off-Broadway, and his short plays have been performed across the US and in Canada. 2018 will see two productions of his youth-theatre musical piece The Emperor’s Nightingale in New York and Minneapolis. He is the recipient of several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Dramatists Guild Fund, Durfee Foundation, and UNESCO. He has received an Ovation Award for Best Play and is published by Samuel French, Smith & Kraus, and Plays for Young Audiences. Damon was previously a member of the Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater and is currently a member of Ma-Yi Theater’s Writers Lab. Before he moved to the United States more than twenty years ago, Damon’s plays were produced in Singapore. These included Ash & Shadowless (TheatreWorks), Trine (ACTION Theatre), Best Foot Forward (ACTION Theatre), and The Buried (TheatreWorks).
Liansheng graduated with an LLB (Honours) degree from the National University of Singapore and is currently a Partner at M/s Bih Li & Lee LLP. His area of practice is general litigation, with a focus on private client matters and commercial litigation. Besides being a lawyer, Liansheng is also a playwright. In 2012, he was offered the opportunity to present his script, The Boy Inside, as part of the NUS Arts Festival. Since then, he has written for The Necessary Stage’s Theatre For Seniors, Singapore Arts Festival 2012 and the NUS Arts Festival from 2012 to 2016. In June 2014, he presented a dramatised reading of his first full-length work, The Boy Inside, as part of the Esplanade’s The Studios RAW series. He subsequently completed his second full-length work, Half Life, in the latter half of 2014 under NAC’s Mentor Access Project. He recently presented his full-length original musical, Letters to ITE, with ITE Centre for Music and the Arts.
Liansheng is also one of the four apprentice dramaturgs under Centre 42's The Garage programme.
Two generations of broadcasters and the radio silence between them.
NUS Stage gathers tokens of our world’s sights to present a time capsule to a live audience, before it is sent to the stars.