Residencies
Nurturing individual artists and collectives
Overview
Gateway Arts’ Artist-In-Residence, supports individual artists who are committed to developing specialised skills within their field, as well as developing uplifting works that contribute to Singapore’s growing Arts Industry. Artists will be paired with an artist mentor, provided space for rehearsals and their final showcase, as well as support towards the resources needed to create and develop their works. The basis of residency depends on a strategic alignment that sees both Gateway Arts and the artist aligning in mission, core values, and target market. This year’s places are available for aspiring playwrights.
This will be a nine-month programme that commences in 2025.
Applications for 2025 residencies are open from 15 July to 31 August 2024.
More information is available here:
Current Residents
RAIYA BASALAMAH
PLAYWRIGHT
Raiya’s work focuses on tensions with the self and society. With almost a decade-long background of theatre and actor training, she takes on the breadth of imagination, intuition and empathy gathered from those years and applies it to her work as a writer. Her training includes clowning, Fitzmaurice Voicework and Balinese mask, all of which have unlocked an inner wisdom that feeds into a spontaneous writing process that she has embraced in recent years.
Her writing includes an audio play titled Beautiful, which explores the progression of cosmetic surgery and body image issues as a response to Theatre of Others’ ‘Fifty Years from Now’ Audio New Play Festival in 2023.
Apart from writing, Raiya finds lots of joy and fulfilment (even on her most exhausting days) as a drama educator for Primary and Secondary School students. The best part of her career is seeing them embrace their more confident and playful selves through drama
Past Residents
VIGNESH SINGH
ACTOR
Vignesh Singh is a Singaporean actor, theatre-maker, and educator.
A recipient of the Trailblazer General Fund, Vignesh graduated with a Diploma in Intercultural Theatre (Acting) from the Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore.
He is also a graduate of the Buds Youth Theatre Program, The Singapore Rep Theatre’s Young Company and iTheatre’s Creative Edge. Most recently, he completed the internationally acclaimed clown workshop at École Philippe Gaulier in Paris.
With over 15 years of acting and theatre-making experience, some of his notable theatre credits include, Oddsocks (Five Stones Theatre), Come Back Home (Polyglot Theatre), The Crucible (Toy Factory Productions), Perfecting Pratas (Sight Lines Entertainment) and Box (Pitapat Theatre, Malaysia).
Vignesh‘s film/tv work has also been featured on major streaming services such as HBO Asia and Netflix.
He is the Artistic Director of Translucent Bodies, a collective dedicated to theatre training and performance making that regularly conducts acting workshops for professionals/semi-professionals.
Vignesh’s interests lie within intercultural collaboration, naturalism, actor-training, physical and devised theatre.
Read the Room
“Read the Room” was a workshop series in progress dedicated to the art and craft of theatrical red nose clowning.
The workshop aimed to empower participants by enhancing emotional access, acting as a gymnasium for vulnerability.
While clowning is commonly linked with actor training, this workshop welcomed anyone enthusiastic about self-development to explore their own distinctive humor and authenticity.
TEO PEI SI
PLAYWRIGHT
Teo Pei Si has a keen interest to create work that explores culture, heritage, and the intricacies of identity. After graduating from ARTivate (Drama Box) and NTU Division of Chinese, she now practices as an actor, playwright and producer.
In 2021, she founded The Solitude Movement, a theatre collective dedicated to producing works that explore Singapore’s rich cultural heritage and diverse identity, with a focus on Chinese language works.
Sometimes, she lives a life under the pseudonym of gongxin.
Her writing credits include Stories of the Un(forgotten) - Landmarks (2023), re/connecting… (2021) Dearest S (2020), KNOTS (2019), and IgnorLAND of its LOSS (2016).
Three Sisters
"Three Sisters" explores the intricacies of an ordinary, typical Singaporean family. During a recent trip to Tokyo, Japan, the sisters come to understand how deeply rooted issues have shaped their individual personalities.
As they navigate the bustling streets of Tokyo, their conflicting traits spark unexpected confrontations and heartfelt revelations. Through these interactions, the sisters unravels long-standing tensions and discovers profound truths about themselves and each other.
This journey of self-discovery and reconciliation forms the heart of the play, offering a poignant look at the complexities of family dynamics.
TERRANCE TAN
PLAYWRIGHT
Terrance Tan is the co-founder of Bitesize Theatre. Bitesize Theatre was part of Gateway Arts’ Collective-in-Residence Programme 2020-2021, where The Monster in the Mirror was first developed as a musical film. The production was later staged as a live performance in 2023.
He is an alumni of the Directing Residency Programme at Singapore Repertory Theatre, where he was a Director for The Little Company’s Classic Stories from Around the World and Classic Christmas Stories, as well as an Associate Director of Playmakers and Miss Julie. Assistant Director credits include The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), Lungs, The Commission, Tuesdays with Morrie, Fly High, Upstairs in the Sky (Mandarin) and Little Red Riding Hood (Mandarin).
As a filmmaker, he directed the opening musical for Mediacorp's Star Awards 2021.
Third Man Syndrome
"Why did you jump?"
Albert thought this question could never be answered. His friend, Erwin, had just killed himself. Erwin was completely normal - exceptional even. Not only was he a valedictorian, a national youth gymnast, he also had a banging hot girlfriend. Albert was none of that. They had nothing in common, but they did love beers and shit talking each other.
Albert thought this question could never be answered. That is, until he found himself in Erwin’s last dream.
A dream where he must now answer this question in an exam he never studied for, stuck in a time loop that he cannot escape, chasing a ghost that will not talk. The deeper he falls into the dream, the stranger and darker are the secrets he uncovers. He must learn the horrible truth about why his friend killed himself, or he might never wake up.”
EUGINIA TAN
PLAYWRIGHT
Past Works: The Rat Trap
Euginia Tan is a Singaporean writer who writes poetry, creative non-fiction and plays. Her third poetry collection, Phedra (Ethos Books) was nominated for the 2018 Singapore Literature Prize. Her play-writing credits include Holidays (under mentorship of Joel Tan), Tuition (Twenty Something Theatre Festival) and Modest Travels (produced by Tan Kheng Hua for Uniqlo). She also pens curatorial essays and contributions for visual artists in Singapore.
TAN YANRU
PLAYWRIGHT
Past Works: Rubies
Yan Ru will graduate with a double degree from NUS in 2020. She’s a law major and psychology minor, but as most of her friends know, theatre is her true love. Her favourite past roles include O’Brian (1984), Ellen Toh (Mergers & Accusations) and Wendla Bergmann (Spring Awakening). She is so grateful and honoured to be working with Gateway Theatre! In her free time…pfft what free time?? She enjoys adding titles to her Netflix to watch list but never actually watching them and making travel vlogs. She thanks her family, friends and most of all, God.
Rubies
A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." - Proverbs 31:10.
Janelle is a #girlboss, a modern Christian go-getter who will obliterate anything standing in between her and her goals. Bathsheba is the reluctant new wife of the universally beloved King David, the man said to be "after God's own heart". Though they are separated by time and space, the two women become each other's closest confidants as they navigate love, loss, and a world that constantly seeks to define a woman's worth.
VICTORIA CHEN
MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTIST
Past Works: Agammemnon
Vic’s multidisciplinary practice takes form as solo works or within collaborations with practitioners from various disciplines. She aims to work internationally and embraces the transient, inconsistent nature of life. Apart from acting on stage and screen, she directs, teaches and creates for people of all backgrounds and ages. Vic has trained in Australia, Iceland, USA, UK, China and Singapore, and draws inspiration from both Eastern and Western forms. Her works challenge the definitions of live performance, through the exploration of theatrical conventions as individual forms of communication. These works are situated within spaces that achieve a sense ephemerality and immediacy through film and recorded sound, and vice versa: retaining a sense of permanence in transient forms like live performance and interaction.
Vic aims to break apart cultural stereotypes through the presentation of unheard voices and narratives. She is currently an associate artist with Bhumi Collective. Find out more about her work on Vhickles and @Vhickles on Instagram
Agammemnon
A presentation of a chorus extract from Aeschylus’ Agammemnon. In this chorus section, the chorus gives thanks to Zeus for the victory of Argos over Troy as one that is well-deserved, and laments the terrible cost of the war.
Other Works
1. Three Little Girls - A documentary theatre experience.
2. While We Were - A 10 to 15-minute participative audio experience.)
3. Dysmorphia - A 10-minute presentation exploring Body Dysmorphic Disorder.
4. Unconventional Spaces - A 10-minute site-specific piece exploring Gateway Theatre’s Sky Garden.
KIMBERLY CHAN
SINGER / PERFORMER
Past Works: An Artful Encounter
Kimberly Chan graduated in 2014 with First Class Honours in Musical Theatre from LASALLE College of the Arts. She has since performed in over 25 professional theatre productions, made frequent appearances in Children’s Theatre shows and even written and performed a solo show, ‘In Her Shoes’, directed by Samantha Scott-Blackhall, in 2018. Trained in Spanish Dance, Flamenco, Tap & Jazz, Kimberly frequently choreographs for various schools and productions in Singapore. She has also taught workshops and classes for schools and companies such as, Rose Borromeo Spanish Dance Company, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and LASALLE College of the Arts.
Kimberly’s aim is to become a more grounded musical theatre performer. The artist will be honing her singing techniques with focus on technical skills, integration of acting into song as well as expansion of repertoire. This is all in preparation for her 2020 submission to the “Lotte Lenya Competition”, established by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.
Kimberly is using the opportunity to teach dance and drama to the community that frequent Gateway Theatre and hopes to inspire these children with the love of performing arts.
An Artful Encounter
An Artful Encounter marks the end of Kimberly Chan’s year long journey into the world of Classical singing
ADEEB FAZAH
DIRECTOR
Past Works: Heather
Adeeb is the co-founder and artistic director of theatre collective The Second Breakfast Company (2BCo), and fringe theatre outfit Adeeb and Shai. He has worked with Yellow Chair Productions as an associate artist since 2013, performing in and directing some of Yellow Chair’s works. He has been named one of Time Out Singapore’s 8 “Rising Stars” in the Singapore theatre scene(2014), and one of The Peak magazines five “Stars that Rise” (2017). Adeeb aims to inspire young people in the arena of theatre, having worked with students in Nanyang Polytechnic and Boon Lay Secondary School. Adeeb flew the Singapore flag in 2017 at the 70th Edinburgh Festival Fringe where he directed a one-man show written and performed by joint artistic director of Bhumi Collective, Mohamad Shaifulbahri.
In this residency, Adeeb aims to incubate and create an original work by an upcoming young playwright, create the space to tell an indigenous story on stage and explore means of melding contemporary and traditional forms of performance. He seeks to grow as a director by developing confidence in directorial and dramaturgical decision-making when working on new and original scripts, and honing a personal aesthetic for fusion of different forms.
Heather
A reclusive children’s writer becomes wildly successful after publishing a series of fantasy books about a hero using her magical pen to fight evil
Collectives
Bitesize Theatre Productions
Bitesize Theatre Productions is an up and coming musical theatre collective that is dedicated to creating important and relevant works for local audiences. Led by Rui Shan, Tanya, Terrance and Michelle, the Bitesize team believes in people of passion, compassion and dedication. We hope to provide an inclusive and welcoming space for young creatives to collaborate, create and make magic.
Work Developed: The Monster In The Mirror
Five Stones Theatre
Five Stones Theatre is an interdisciplinary and international collective of artists who are dedicated to creating quality dance and theatre productions for children and young people. Named after a popular traditional children’s game in Singapore, we seek to arouse curiosity and ignite the imagination of our audiences by providing them with ‘something a little different’. By connecting artists and audiences with a range of work that is honest, refreshing and thought provoking, we invite children from all cultures into a conversation about art and the world we live in.
Work Developed: The Monster In The Mirror