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Singapore’s most promising playwright presents his sophomore collection of plays, including Charged, winner of the 2011 The Straits Times’ Life! Theatre Award for Best Script. Through his signature use of experimental and innovative puppetry and stage devices, Chong’s Charged is Singapore’s most controversial and nuanced political play to date—addressing the issue of racial tensions in the most explosive of scenarios—that of a Chinese corporal shooting his Malay counterpart while on military duty.
On Charged
“Chong Tze Chien’s script…is rock solid writing. (It) serves up as an intimate understanding of the various complexities of race and the ways race intersects with other social divisions such as class. Chong does not treat his material with kid gloves and confronts difficult questions that are often buried below politically correct platitudes about race.”
—Adeline Chia, The Straits Times
“Charged does not disappoint. It tackles issues of race with brutal frankness and a refreshing lack of political correctness…The script is explosive yet sensitive and nuanced.”
—Kenneth Kwok, The Flying Inkpot
“One of the most incendiary - and necessary - plays of all time, Charged takes a raw and unflinching look at race relations in Singapore through the murder of a Malay soldier and the consequent suicide of a Chinese one.”
—Helmi Yusof, ‘The finest plays in 50 years’, The Business Times
On Poop!
“Poop! is heartfelt, beguiling and magical.”
—Adeline Chia, The Straits Times
“Chong Tze Chien has crafted a piece which is whimsical and spell-binding, yet at the same time heart-breaking. Poop! presents a vision of mortality quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen. This is a work which will provoke you in unexpected ways.”
—Ho Rui An, The Flying Inkpot
On Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
“From the rag-tag denizens who trawl its corridors to the lonely, broken spirits of the folks within, Chong Tze Chien spins a triple-bill tapestry that is exquisite in its detail and cogent in its effect.”
—Sangeetha Madhavan, The Business Times
Chong Tze Chien is a multiple-award-winning playwright who has been the company director of The Finger Players since 2004. Some of his prize-winning scripts include Pan Island Expressway (Singapore Dramatist Award 1998), Furthest North, Deepest South (Best Production of the Year at the 2005 Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards) and Charged (Best Original Script at the 2011 Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards). Upon graduating from the National University of Singapore with a degree in Theatre Studies, he joined The Necessary Stage as a playwright and director from 2000 to 2004. He was awarded the Young Artist Award for theatre in 2006 by the National Arts Council for his contribution to the arts scene. In 2010, Chong Tze Chien represented Singapore at La Ma Ma—Playwright’s Symposium in Italy, where he wrote To Whom It May Concern.
