OTGV #40 - Esplanade's Day
Broadcast Date: 20/10/03
A week and a year ago, a remarkable building was launched in Singapore but on the world stage.
This building is the Esplanade.
And as it caps a successful year in existence, has it really helped the local arts industry?
Hi Welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
The Esplanade's CEO Benson Phua said Singapore’s premier arts center had a good first year.
"The 2000 events that we put out and the 8 million people that have passed thru our doors. That is a tremendous number of performances and people. I am sure life has been changed or touched. So perhaps we have made a difference but we only just begun."
The Esplanade has provided a world class venue to Singaporeans where, at long last, they can savor their favourite musicals, symphony or more.
Act3 Theatric's Chandran on the Esplanade’s good showing.
"I am pleasantly surprised that it is friendly to the audience. I am glad that as a space, that it is vibrant and things are happening. I was wondering if it is going to be a white elephant but from what I seen, it is not."
Has the Esplanade helped local arts companies with its presence?
Singapore Repertory Theatre or S-R-T's Charlotte North.
"Obviously having a big space that attracts big international productions does add to the vibrancy of the market and with the opening of the Esplanade last year, there's certainly an international recognition of Singapore as an arts hub that hasn't been here before. I think Esplanade has definitely has become an icon but I think also what's going on in Singapore right now is a maturing arts scene where you see a lot of new theatre groups see the light of the day. We have run our own venue for two years now. There's a lot more going-ons in the arts."
Kaylene Tan, the President of Spell7, a local experimental theatre company on how the Esplanade energizes the local scene.
"It pushes the arts groups to work harder, you know, to be more professional and because of the audiences' expectation as well."
Indeed, the SRT's Forbidden City saw a huge P-R campaign and broke the box-office records for a local musical.
Could it have been due to the Esplanade?
Maybe says SRT's Charlotte.
"Selling more than 50 K tickets for a local production in Singapore is a bit of a record but I think it is also a combination of many factors. I think the package of a great story, beautiful music, a big campaign and obviously because it's a nice place and a lot of tourists want to go to the Esplanade and chose to see our production because it's also a local production and a lot of Singaporeans say 'we'll go and see this' Whether it's because at the Esplanade or we would have sold just as many tickets at any other venue is very difficult to say."
Some smaller local arts groups fear that the sheer presence of the Esplanade and glitzy foreign productions may eclipse the smaller, independent local players.
Spell7's Kaylene Tan says there's help from Esplanade.
"Now they have this programme called Sparks as well which is commissioning new works. Their support has been very useful for us, especially helping us with more sponsors as well because just having the name there makes it a more high profile event."
However, ACT3 Theatrics' Chandran says smaller groups are still plagued an age-old problem.
"For children theatre companies as a whole, we believe that the rental of any theatre space in Singapore is exaggerated, it’s very very high. And because of that, ticket prices have to be high. There's a problem there for us. How much a family spends counts you see, so you can't charge 70 or 80. We really have a problem, not just with the Esplanade but most venues in Singapore. Our hope is that the rental for theatre space as a whole will come down."
The Necessary Stage's Ngiam Su Lin explains why local players may find the Esplanade's costs prohibitive.
"Esplanade also have to understand that local groups, we are not like foreign groups that have done the tour, so you've done that show 100s of times and you can provide a text-bag and be very specific about what you want. Because most of our works are original or we don't have a long shelf life, we need time to manoeuvre and see how things were and that eats into rental time, which Esplanade is very strict about. You book the space for a certain amount of hours, you get this amount of staff make use of them, if you don't you still need to pay for them anyways because otherwise you didn't say that you don't need them."
But Esplanade's Benson Phua says that the Esplanade is intended to be at the high end of Singapore's performance venues, as such, local companies will have to adapt.
"Much of the cost structure is really cost-recovery and if we were to develop an arts industry, these costs are very much a factor of all productions. For instance, the venue costs, the cost for crew, which not many companies are yet accustomed to because they usually relied on volunteers. It will take time for local scenes to mature and be able to grapple with some of these costs issues."
It will take some give-and-take, maybe a little hand holding before homegrown theatre companies can compete with the big boys like the Cameron-Macintoshes or Andrew Lloyd Webbers.
But S-R-T with the Forbidden City has already proved it ISN'T impossible to do so.
Singaporeans must also do their part by dropping the mentality that foreign is better.
Then perhaps, the Esplanade and the promise it was entrusted with at its opening, can grow.
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
===============================
Related Links:
Newsradio 938 (now 938Live)
http://www.938live.sg/
The Esplanade
http://www.esplanade.com/
Act3 Theatrics
http://www.act3theatrics.com/
Singapore Repertory Theatre
http://www.srt.com.sg/03/SRT.com.sg.html
The Necessary Stage
http://www.necessary.org/home/home.htm
Spell 7
http://www.spell7.net/
A week and a year ago, a remarkable building was launched in Singapore but on the world stage.
This building is the Esplanade.
And as it caps a successful year in existence, has it really helped the local arts industry?
Hi Welcome to On the Grapevine with me Chong Ching Liang.
The Esplanade's CEO Benson Phua said Singapore’s premier arts center had a good first year.
"The 2000 events that we put out and the 8 million people that have passed thru our doors. That is a tremendous number of performances and people. I am sure life has been changed or touched. So perhaps we have made a difference but we only just begun."
The Esplanade has provided a world class venue to Singaporeans where, at long last, they can savor their favourite musicals, symphony or more.
Act3 Theatric's Chandran on the Esplanade’s good showing.
"I am pleasantly surprised that it is friendly to the audience. I am glad that as a space, that it is vibrant and things are happening. I was wondering if it is going to be a white elephant but from what I seen, it is not."
Has the Esplanade helped local arts companies with its presence?
Singapore Repertory Theatre or S-R-T's Charlotte North.
"Obviously having a big space that attracts big international productions does add to the vibrancy of the market and with the opening of the Esplanade last year, there's certainly an international recognition of Singapore as an arts hub that hasn't been here before. I think Esplanade has definitely has become an icon but I think also what's going on in Singapore right now is a maturing arts scene where you see a lot of new theatre groups see the light of the day. We have run our own venue for two years now. There's a lot more going-ons in the arts."
Kaylene Tan, the President of Spell7, a local experimental theatre company on how the Esplanade energizes the local scene.
"It pushes the arts groups to work harder, you know, to be more professional and because of the audiences' expectation as well."
Indeed, the SRT's Forbidden City saw a huge P-R campaign and broke the box-office records for a local musical.
Could it have been due to the Esplanade?
Maybe says SRT's Charlotte.
"Selling more than 50 K tickets for a local production in Singapore is a bit of a record but I think it is also a combination of many factors. I think the package of a great story, beautiful music, a big campaign and obviously because it's a nice place and a lot of tourists want to go to the Esplanade and chose to see our production because it's also a local production and a lot of Singaporeans say 'we'll go and see this' Whether it's because at the Esplanade or we would have sold just as many tickets at any other venue is very difficult to say."
Some smaller local arts groups fear that the sheer presence of the Esplanade and glitzy foreign productions may eclipse the smaller, independent local players.
Spell7's Kaylene Tan says there's help from Esplanade.
"Now they have this programme called Sparks as well which is commissioning new works. Their support has been very useful for us, especially helping us with more sponsors as well because just having the name there makes it a more high profile event."
However, ACT3 Theatrics' Chandran says smaller groups are still plagued an age-old problem.
"For children theatre companies as a whole, we believe that the rental of any theatre space in Singapore is exaggerated, it’s very very high. And because of that, ticket prices have to be high. There's a problem there for us. How much a family spends counts you see, so you can't charge 70 or 80. We really have a problem, not just with the Esplanade but most venues in Singapore. Our hope is that the rental for theatre space as a whole will come down."
The Necessary Stage's Ngiam Su Lin explains why local players may find the Esplanade's costs prohibitive.
"Esplanade also have to understand that local groups, we are not like foreign groups that have done the tour, so you've done that show 100s of times and you can provide a text-bag and be very specific about what you want. Because most of our works are original or we don't have a long shelf life, we need time to manoeuvre and see how things were and that eats into rental time, which Esplanade is very strict about. You book the space for a certain amount of hours, you get this amount of staff make use of them, if you don't you still need to pay for them anyways because otherwise you didn't say that you don't need them."
But Esplanade's Benson Phua says that the Esplanade is intended to be at the high end of Singapore's performance venues, as such, local companies will have to adapt.
"Much of the cost structure is really cost-recovery and if we were to develop an arts industry, these costs are very much a factor of all productions. For instance, the venue costs, the cost for crew, which not many companies are yet accustomed to because they usually relied on volunteers. It will take time for local scenes to mature and be able to grapple with some of these costs issues."
It will take some give-and-take, maybe a little hand holding before homegrown theatre companies can compete with the big boys like the Cameron-Macintoshes or Andrew Lloyd Webbers.
But S-R-T with the Forbidden City has already proved it ISN'T impossible to do so.
Singaporeans must also do their part by dropping the mentality that foreign is better.
Then perhaps, the Esplanade and the promise it was entrusted with at its opening, can grow.
This is Chong Ching Liang for Newsradio 938.
===============================
Related Links:
Newsradio 938 (now 938Live)
http://www.938live.sg/
The Esplanade
http://www.esplanade.com/
Act3 Theatrics
http://www.act3theatrics.com/
Singapore Repertory Theatre
http://www.srt.com.sg/03/SRT.com.sg.html
The Necessary Stage
http://www.necessary.org/home/home.htm
Spell 7
http://www.spell7.net/
posted by CHONG Ching-liang | 5:44 PM
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