ACSian Theatre’s musical adaptation of a local short story

ACSian Theatre

ACSian Theatre is a group of highly dedicated alumni and current students of the Anglo-Chinese Junior College. The company has been involving itself in many interesting and exciting projects in the arts scene.

The philosophy of the company has always been to challenge our performers to explore and cultivate the myriad of skills of the performance arts. Each project experiments with a different genre, each production exposes the actor to a new dimension of performance. Since 1990, ACSian Theatre has performed two major productions a year and in 2001, that number was increased to three key performances per annum. Our productions include Camelot (2005), West Side Story (2007), Bang Bang You’re Dead (2007), Some Girl(s) (2008), Pride and Prejudice (2008), The Odyssey (2009), The Count of Monte Cristo (2009), The NOH Series(2010), As You Like It (2010), Three Sisters (2010), Alice in Wonderland (2011), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2012), The Crucible (2013), The Jungle Book (2013), Romeo and Juliet (2014), Amadeus (2015), Day I Met the Prince (2015), A Christmas Carol (2015), Lady Windermere’s Fan (2016), Animal Farm (2017), A Thousand and One Nights (2017), The Tempest (2018), Beauty and the Beast (2018), Hero (2019), Santa Claus: Origins (2019), Grimm Tales (2020), and Twelfth Night (2021).

ACJC has been a major player in the area of the performing arts, winning the Sustained Achievement Award for Asthetics every year consecutively since 2003. ACSian Theatre has contributed significantly to this accomplishment by establishing itself on the local junior college circuit and becoming the only junior college to win the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Gold as well as ‘Play of the Year’ Award in three consecutive years. The award-winning plays were ‘The Dreams of Anne Frank’ (2000) followed by ‘Never the Sinner’ (2002) and ‘Rashomon’ (2004). It was the recipient of the SYF Gold medal from 2006 to 2012, and the Certificate of Distinction in 2014 and 2016 to make it a hat trick of awards. We are also privileged to be the only Singaporean school to participate in the 1st World Theatre Festival for Youth Theatre in Vienna (2009) and be invited to the 17th Bat-Yam Theatre Festival in Tel Aviv (2011). ACSian Theatre also achieved the 1st Prize in the Dance Theatre Category at the New Prague Dance Festival in 2013 and 2014 and a Gold Medal at the Asian Arts Festival in 2017.

The Drama Club’s International and Community Commitment

ACSian Theatre has a firm belief in extending its presence beyond the confine of the school and continues to experiment with different performance locations and genres while affirming its commitment to community actions. In 1999, the company performed a series of fairytales, through mime, mask, storytelling and music, for the Singapore Arts Fringe Festival at Fort Canning Park. They also performed Kuo Pao Kun’s play ‘The Day I met the Prince’ (2002) in Sculpture Square and it was also the only junior college to participate in the 2002 Asian Children’s Festival, which took place in the same location. 2003 was a partnership with the Singapore Street Buskers Festival and 2004 with Singapore Tourist Board in Arts-For-All. 2005 was community performances for National Day at Carnival@Marina, and Singapore Dramatists and Educators Association (SDEA) to promote theatre nationally. ACSian Theatre has also been specially commissioned by NLB to perform at the Opening Ceremony of Read! Singapore in 2006 and 2007. In 2015, ACSian Theatre performed at the Opening Ceremony of the World Schools Debating Championships, showcasing the vibrancy of Singapore’s youth and our multi-cultural landscape. Our other partnerships include the MOE Humanities Symposium (2012), Singapore General Hospital (2016), Singapore Changi Hospital (2017) and the Singapore Writers’ Festival with the Singapore Book Council from 2017 to 2019,

In 2001, the company took a bold step forward by embarking on a performance tour in South Africa, performing the lyrical Nö Plays of Japan to a wide variety of audiences ranging from young students in Soweto Schools to the Singapore High Commission in Pretoria. Following this, there has been 4 community tours of South Africa in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 and command performances for the Singapore community in Johannesburg. Since then, the company has also performed in Cambodia for The Methodist Mission (2010 & 2012), conducted workshops in India for The Mahatma School (2013) and conducted cultural exchanges with ACS International in Jakarta (2015 & 2017) and The Olympia Schools (2019). The company also had the privilege of being invited to perform a series of mime and mask stories at the President’s Challenge in 2001, performed at the 3rd AIDS Youth Symposium in 2002, engaged in keynote performances with the children from the Down Syndrome Association in 2003 and 2009, and staged a theatrical production with students from the Grace Orchard School in 2011. In 2020, ACSian Theatre collaborated with the Singapore Repertory Theatre and filmed a performance of Pick-A-Hero, as part of the community efforts to promote cyber wellness. It continues to be a community partner with organisations such as the Straits Times Pocket Money Fund, Compassion Fund, Assisi Hospice and The Birthday Collective.