Preview: One Love, A Legacy – Celebrating Joanna & Leslie Wong and Chinese Theatre Circle by Chinese Theatre Circle

For more than six decades, Joanna Wong has devoted her life to Cantonese opera. She has performed it, taught it, modernised it and taken it around the world. Alongside her late husband, Leslie Wong, she also helped build one of Singapore’s most important Chinese opera institutions from the ground up. Now, as Chinese Theatre Circle (CTC) marks its 45th anniversary, that extraordinary journey is coming … Continue reading Preview: One Love, A Legacy – Celebrating Joanna & Leslie Wong and Chinese Theatre Circle by Chinese Theatre Circle

Wagnerian Ambition: Orchestra of the Music Makers Music Director Chan Tze Law on ‘Siegfried’ and OMM’s future

For Chan Tze Law, the question of whether the Orchestra of the Music Makers (OMM) will complete Wagner’s Ring cycle is, for now, best left unanswered. OMM has already travelled three quarters of the way. After Die Walküre in 2020 and Das Rheingold in 2023, the Singapore-based orchestra will take on Siegfried at the Esplanade Concert Hall on 5 September, bringing one of the most … Continue reading Wagnerian Ambition: Orchestra of the Music Makers Music Director Chan Tze Law on ‘Siegfried’ and OMM’s future

Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Claire Teo and Oon Shu An on seeing, being, and performing ‘MONSTRESS’

What does it mean to truly see another person? Not simply to look at them, but to recognise their struggles, question our assumptions and notice the quiet ways people can slip through the cracks. These are the questions surrounding MONSTRESS, a new work by visually impaired theatre-maker Claire Teo and ART:DIS that examines disability, caregiving and the everyday systems that shape who is heard, believed … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Claire Teo and Oon Shu An on seeing, being, and performing ‘MONSTRESS’

★★★☆☆ Theatre Review: Multiple Bad Things by Back to Back Theatre

Nightmarish fever dream of a devised theatre work problematises and interrogates the complications of disability and accessibility today. From its title alone, Multiple Bad Things possesses a distinctly ominous quality. What are these bad things? A series of terrible events waiting to happen, or the accumulation of smaller cruelties that eventually become something much more sinister? The production’s visual material might initially suggest something whimsical … Continue reading ★★★☆☆ Theatre Review: Multiple Bad Things by Back to Back Theatre

Preview: Baybeats 2026 presents four days of independent music, big sounds and new bands to discover

Singapore’s alternative music festival returns this September for its 25th edition, bringing four days of heavy riffs, dreamy soundscapes, genre-bending experiments and some of the region’s most exciting independent acts to Esplanade. From Japanese rock heavyweights and Korean indie favourites to homegrown underground stalwarts and a new generation of Baybeats Budding Bands, this year’s festival is less about sticking to one sound than following your … Continue reading Preview: Baybeats 2026 presents four days of independent music, big sounds and new bands to discover

Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An interview with Ingrid Voorendt, Associate Director, Back to Back Theatre on ‘Multiple Bad Things’

In a placeless warehouse at the end of the world, three employees are given a possibly pointless task. As they struggle to work together, the boundaries between cooperation and conflict begin to fray. What starts with politeness gradually descends into sly victimisation and bad behaviour, while language shifts from playful and absurd to threatening and deadly serious. In MULTIPLE BAD THINGS, award-winning Australian company Back … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An interview with Ingrid Voorendt, Associate Director, Back to Back Theatre on ‘Multiple Bad Things’

★★★★★ Theatre Review: Handle with Care by Ontroerend Goed (Esplanade’s The Studios 2026)

A tender, bewildering piece of participatory theatre where audiences learn to get things right (and wrong) together, revealing us at our most human selves. Performance attended 7 Aug 8pm60 minutes, no intermission In theatre, one would naturally assume that actors are required. There might be a director somewhere in the wings, technicians behind the scenes, a script determining what happens next, and an audience whose … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Handle with Care by Ontroerend Goed (Esplanade’s The Studios 2026)

★★★★★ Theatre Review: Legally Blonde – The Musical by Singapore Repertory Theatre

Led by a sensational Nathania Ong, SRT’s all-Singaporean cast delivers on big vocals, demanding choreography, sharp comedy and an emotional payoff that leaves the audience believing that anything is possible. Performance watched on 31 July, 8pmDuration: 150 minutes (including 20 minute intermission) For all its hot-pink glamour, heels and sorority energy, Legally Blonde – The Musical has always been a show about being underestimated. Elle … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Legally Blonde – The Musical by Singapore Repertory Theatre

★★★★★ Theatre Review: Blind Runner by Mehr Theatre Group and Amir Reza Koohestani

A deceptively simple premise of a husband and wife’s relationship torn apart by imprisonment turns into something much more devastating in the face of political activism. Performance watched on 1 August, 8pmDuration: 60 minutes In Iran, where dissent can turn an ordinary life into one shaped by surveillance, imprisonment and separation, freedom is never simply an abstract ideal. In Iranian theatremaker’s Amir Reza Koohestani’s Blind … Continue reading ★★★★★ Theatre Review: Blind Runner by Mehr Theatre Group and Amir Reza Koohestani

Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Samir Veen on participation and co-operation in Ontroerend Goed’s ‘Handle with Care’

When Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed first conceived Handle with Care, they knew almost nothing about the performance itself. There were no actors, no technicians, no script, and not even a clear idea of what would eventually be inside the box that sits at the centre of the stage. What they did know was that they wanted to make something they had never made before. … Continue reading Esplanade’s The Studios 2026: An Interview with Samir Veen on participation and co-operation in Ontroerend Goed’s ‘Handle with Care’