My mother tried persuading me to get a hospital bed at home for years. “Your uncle can help us source one that the pediatric hospital doesn’t want,” she said at one point. “Our neighbor doesn’t need hers anymore. She offered it to us. Do you want it?” Mom asked…
Wandering the Lines – a Column by Sherry Toh
By the time I was 19, I believed I had escaped my reproductive cycle. In fact, I had developed a superiority complex about it. While my friends complained about cramps and cravings, I laughed in their faces. It’s not like I was reading studies on young women with…
A stool. A chain. A person’s body. None of these things is what I’d usually call “art materials,” but that’s exactly how contemporary Singaporean artist Amanda Heng sees them. During a recent trip to the National Gallery Singapore, I discovered “Walking The Stool,” a 1999 performance by…
To its credit, “The Beauty,” a new sci-fi, body-horror miniseries from Ryan Murphy, co-creator of “American Horror Story” and other acclaimed projects, dives deeper into the topic of genetic editing and disability than most sci-fi shows I’ve seen. Typically, as in “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” genetic editing is framed either as…
I’m a lot of people’s favorite something. That’s not bragging, it’s just a statement of fact. Ask my mother who her favorite child is, or some of the nurses at my usual hospital’s neurology ward who their favorite patient is, or some of my friends who their favorite friend or…
“Do you remember when Dad took us kite flying?” I asked my brother, Gabriel. We were on a train ride home from the Sands Theatre, where we’d just seen an international production of Disney’s live musical, “Beauty and the Beast.” “Nope,” he said. “I thought that was with the…
The Lights, Camera, Action! attraction at Universal Studios Singapore was just as I remembered it. Without missed or delayed cues, fans blew harsh winds, sprinklers rained, sound effects thundered, lights flashed, and a ginormous boat barged in — all to simulate how a special effects team could recreate…
I had no idea that I didn’t have a “normal” amount of makeup. Despite owning two full bags of products, excluding my brushes, it never occurred to me that I possessed more than the average person. It wasn’t until I brought my kit to a friend to borrow for her…
There’s a character in the musical “Wicked” that I strongly relate to. She has the cutest slippers in the film, and her first day at Shiz University barely hints at the whirlwind of tragedies that await her. Throughout the story, she spends much of her time trying to prove herself.
The magic of theater is that it’s live. Despite having a script, cues, rehearsals, and anything else the cast and crew can use to achieve consistency, the live nature of theater means the production remains mutable. You can’t “lock in” scenes like you can with film. Plus, not only will…
