SINGAPORE — Over the last decade, Singaporean audiences have been treated to regular revivals of Broadway or West End musicals, like “Phantom of the Opera” and “Mamma Mia,” and as their appetite for the Western art form grew, it encouraged a few local theater troupes to produce their own versions.These local productions tended to be performed in English, such as Singapore Repertory Theatre’s “Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress” (2002), based on the life of the Empress Dowager Cixi; or “Sleepless Town” (2009) from Toy Factory Productions, about a 12-year-old living in a make-believe world as an antidote to her troubled life.
But this year, the staging of several homegrown musicals in Mandarin with definite Asian twists is attesting to the local audience’s growing interest for musicals with themes closer to home. Full Story
