The Ghost Of Chestnuts Past

Reports:
Inkpot

The Cast and Crew

Jonathan Lim

Jon entered theatre in 1994 in SRT’s Into the Woods, followed by Dick Lee’s Kampong Amber. He then directed Sooner or Later - The Magic of Stephen Sondheim and had the audacity to sing on BBC London’s Loose Ends, to the Queen Mother’s considerable surprise. And no one’s stopped him yet. Directorial works include all past STAGES shows, Art and Life for Ingot Arts, Quiet The Gorilla (Theatreworks), Dick & Ja - the Early Years for...well, Dick and Ja; Yum Sing! The Musical and Temptations, PAP at 45 for the PAP; Singapore’s first interactive site-specific murder mystery play MURDER D.i.Y, Art & Life (Ingot Arts), Pontianak: A Love Story, Pan Island Expressway for Theatreworks’ Charging Up Memory Lane; A Right Ritual (mandarin) for Toy Factory and others. For Action Theatre, he wrote and directed the musical Women On Canvas for the Painted Stories series, How Much Is That Man In The Window? at the Hilton; Wang Meiyin’s Split Second; the musical I Am Roger and Poetry in Action 2, both in the recent 42 Theatre Festival. And most recently directed for the Arts Fest 2001 Waterloo Arts Alive. Acting roles include SRT’s The Fantasticks, Big Bang!, Minor Operation’s Killing Radio, Gung-Ho Theatre Ensemble’s The Breasts Of Tiresias, NUS Theatre Ensemble’s Life Moments, Little Bird Theatre’s The Marriage Of Bette And Boo; Are You Afraid of the Dark? (Action Theatre), and all STAGES productions so far. He shocked the world with his Mandarin debut with The Theatre Practice in period musical comedy The Soldier And His Virtuous Wife in ‘96 and again in '98; as well as their mandarin Midsummer Night’s Dream last year. You may recall him from the film Chicken Rice War and most recently as Victor Yap on Growing Up. Also, he most recently appeared as both Emily and the Son in the critically acclaimed monologue Emerald Hole, for the 42 Theatre Festival (which he also wrote.) (The monologue, not the festival.)

His original musical Women On Canvas (music by Wenfu) premiered at Action Theatre in this year’s Arts festival Waterloo Arts Alive Programme. He has written the screenplay for two rather steamy MOH AIDS video movies - The Wrong Side of the Bed and Alex Kena, both by Oak3 Films. His short plays Crumble and Counting Down won the tertiary bit of Short Plays 99, and he wrote the S21 Vision play Heartbeat for Tanjong Pagar CDC (really). He also wrote the verse drama White Sails Over Blue Blue Sea for Toy Factory. Patriotically, he also wrote the lyrics for two of last year’s NDP songs – City Of The World and People In Harmony (i swear). His NS credits include BMT Tekong Camp 3, School of Signals and 2 PDF Beach Road.  He first worked with i theatre playing Lord Capulet in i theatre's Romeo & Juliet this year. So there.

Sean Yeo

Freshly graduated from Film and Japanese Studies at Murdoch, Sean began performing with the SAF Music And Drama Company in 1993, where he first met Jonathan. They collaborated in Dick Lee’s Kampong Amber, which opened the 1994 Festival Of Arts. He went on to appear in Sooner Or Later - The Magic Of Stephen Sondheim and Red Packets with STAGES, then Action Theatre’s Corporate Animals.
In 1996 he appeared in the Festival Of Arts again, this time closing it with Dick Lee's Sing To The Dawn.
The same year, he won the Comedian section of the Fame Awards. Touted as Singapore's answer to Jim Carrey, there followed a string to TV and magazine appearances, cut short by his return to Perth to further his studies. On his yearly trips back to Singapore, he has done Smoke's No Joke (the revue, the video and the cinema/TV ads) and both Chestnuts with STAGES. A trained dancer, he has danced on TV variety shows, road shows, National Day parades and most recently the World Trade Organisation opening show “One”.

However, being in Australia didn’t stop him from going back to theatre as he auditioned to get into the part-time courses of the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), a place now famous due to the likes of Heath Ledger and Hugh Jackman. Although he got in, it was short lived as schedule conflicts with the other university started to take its toil.
Upon hearing the news that a second TV station would open to rival TCS, Sean returned to Singapore to help boost the quality of programming. Will he be successful? Stay tuned.

Bang Wenfu (Musical Director)

After Wenfu's totally unscripted foray into the local theatre scene, the former classical pianist decided he is reasonably well-equipped to be the third 'nut' of the Chestnuts family, the shameless musical powerhouse for the dynamic duo on stage.

A freelance musician who isn't that 'free' really, his day jobs include composing, composing and composing music for various purposes. While specialising in theatre, he also does music for TV commercials, TV serials, the Chinese pop market, and sometimes his songs ended up in bizarre locations. One of his songs went into a Lam Soon Knife cooking oil advert with delicious effects. Another of his songs somehow landed in Batam Island, though it was intended for Taiwan further north.

When not composing, he plays the piano/keyboard for musicals such as Action Theatre's "Chang & Eng", "Chang & Eng", "Chang & Eng" (repeat another two times), SRT's "A Twist of Fate", "They're Playing Our Song" (not mine unfortunately), "Fantasticks", Caldwell Arts' "Nunsense",  M&M's "Kampong Amber", among others.

Not satisfied playing other composers' musicals, he writes his own, such as "Women On Canvas" which garnered rave reviews on the Flying Inkpot. Subsequent compositions include "Chameleon", "Heart Over Heels", "Oleanna" and "The Seventh Drawer", some of them not musicals -- no prizes for guessing which ones.

An Arts graduate from NUS, Wenfu nearly got fried by his parents for choosing music as a career despite a chance to be a teacher. Okay, at least he left a space vacant for another potential NIE undergrad, while his certificate collects dust. Most importantly, it is a thrill for him to experience his music coming to life on air or on stage, but he prays hard his songs won't end up massacred in karaoke lounges or someone's handphone ringer tone.

The Rest Of The Jokers
Production Manager: Brian Seward
Stage Managers/Assistant Production Managers : Andy Tan & Melissa Kwek
Assistant Stage Managers: Sheena & Victoria
Costume Designer : Alison Ang
Costume Assistant : Benjamin Chee
Wardrobe Assistants : Carol & Desmond Kao
Lighting Designer : Yeo Hon Beng
Sound Designer : Bang Wenfu
Lighting Operators : Tan Lue Neng & Fabian
Follow Spotters : Edward Choy & Raymond
Live Accompaniment By : Bang Wenfu
Assisted By : Dawn & Jacklyn
Visual Designer : Yeo Hon Beng
Publicity Design: Denise Marsh

Our Voluptuous Thanks to......

National Arts Council Singapore
ARTS Fund
Zo Cards

Denise Marsh for Publicity support