Wild Rice Celebrates 25 Wild Years With The Best Of Singapore Theatre

16 December 2024 – Wild Rice today announced its 2025 anniversary season celebrating the best of Singapore theatre. Featuring a mix of homegrown classics and thrilling new plays, the six shows in the line-up showcase the groundbreaking work of some of Singapore’s best playwrights, including Alfian Sa’at, Joel Tan and Thomas Lim.

The theatre company will be celebrating its 25th birthday in the same year that Singapore turns 60 – the perfect occasion to shine a spotlight on how Singaporean theatre can so effectively explore all of who we are and can be.

“Our work has always spanned the breadth and depth of what it means to be Singaporean,” says Ivan Heng, Founding Artistic Director of Wild Rice. “That’s why, in this landmark year for Wild Rice and for Singapore, we wanted to offer an eclectic season of theatre that best represents the excellent and diverse work being produced right here in the country.” 

The six shows in Wild Rice’s 2025 season include:

  1. Supervision: Darkly funny and profoundly moving, Thomas Lim’s critically acclaimed domestic drama explores the complicated dynamics of family, privacy and ageing with dignity in a Singapore where foreign workers have become our primary caregivers. Winner of the 2019 Straits Times Life! Award for Best Original Script.
  2. Tunggu Sekejap: The P. Ramlee Suite: Following the success of Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita, Julian Wong, winner of the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 2024, mines P. Ramlee’s body of work to re-compose familiar melodies – like Azizah, Geteran Jiwa and Tunggu Sekejap – into three movements. Led by maestro Foo Say Ming, the 30-piece re: mix orchestra makes its debut at The Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre, which has been lauded as “Singapore’s finest venue for chamber music” (The Straits Times).
  3. Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1: First staged in 2001, with a critically acclaimed revival at the 2013 Singapore Theatre Festival, Alfian Sa’at’s play is a pioneering work of queer Singapore theatre and a touchstone for Singapore’s LGBTQ+ community. Director Ivan Heng will reimagine this production for Wild Rice’s main stage, with Pam Oei set to star as Agnes, a goddess on a mission ‘to save gay men from themselves’.
  4. HOTEL: Spanning a century and performed over close to five hours in nine languages, Alfian Sa’at and Marcia Vanderstraaten’s HOTEL is an immersive, multi-generational epic that has been hailed as an “instant classic” by The Straits Times. In a year when Singapore celebrates SG60, this historical epic is perfectly timed to delve deeply into the country’s past to envision where we might be heading in the future.
  5. The Serangoon Gardens Techno Party of 1993: Punchy, unhinged, and pulsing with youthful anger, The Serangoon Gardens Techno Party of 1993 is Joel Tan’s provocative new play about one young woman raging against the machine in 1990s Singapore – when rebellion steamed beneath the orderly surface of the city.
  6. The Emperor’s New Clothes: In the beloved tradition of the Wild Rice holiday musical, this hilarious, heartwarming and family-friendly show puts a Singaporean spin on Hans Christian Andersen’s timeless tale about the ultimate fashion victim. First staged in 2015, this runway-ready musical comedy will be completely reimagined and updated by its original creative team: director Pam Oei, playwright and lyricist Joel Tan, and composer Julian Wong.

“This season has something for everyone – from modern classics like HOTEL to brand-new plays like The Serangoon Gardens Techno Party of 1993, from domestic dramas such as Supervision to family-friendly musicals like The Emperor’s New Clothes, exploring issues as varied as ageing with dignity and the rebelliousness of youth,” explains Heng.  

“In conjunction with SG60, many shows in our WR25 season mine Singapore’s history for inspiration. Plays like HOTEL, Tunggu Sekejap, Dreamplay and The Serangoon Gardens Techno Party of 1993 explore stories about Singapore and Singaporeans that we need to hear, but do not always find a place in our official narrative or the history books.” 

Since its founding in 2000, Wild Rice has staged close to 180 productions that have entertained and inspired more than 1.2 million audience members, both in Singapore and abroad. 

“It’s deeply gratifying for us to have built an audience for homegrown theatre over the past quarter of a century,” notes Heng. “We can’t wait to welcome even more audiences into our theatre in 2025 to share our Singapore stories, in productions that are as ambitious and accomplished as anything you will see on Broadway or in the West End.”

Tickets for the first three shows in Wild Rice’s 25th anniversary season – Supervision, Tunggu Sekejap: The P. Ramlee Suite and Dreamplay: Asian Boys Vol. 1 – go on sale to Wild Rice Angels from 10am on 16 December. To enjoy priority access, complimentary tickets and other benefits, interested patrons can sign up to become Angels here. All donations are eligible for 250% tax deduction, with contributions made before 31 January 2025 eligible for matched funding by the Tote Board. 

Public sales for these three shows begin at noon on 6 January 2025. Audiences will enjoy a 15% Early Bird discount on all Category 1 & 2 tickets purchased from 6 January to 5 February 2025. 

Tickets for the remaining three shows in Wild Rice’s 2025 season will go on sale in 2025.

For media enquiries, please contact Linda Tan at lindatan@wildrice.com.sg.

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