This national education exhibition was held in Bedok Community Centre and to officiate its opening, the Community Centre organised a variety show at its premises. Stage Pals, was invited to put up a sketch item for the show along with The Native Drama Group.

It had an innovative concept in that one group performed on the stage while the other acted off-stage, around the area where the audience were seated. The cast of The Native Drama Group who performed on-stage depicted present Singapore. Stage Pals, on the other hand, depicted Singapore's past, which spanned from the 40's to the 60's.

The central idea of the sketch was about 2 grand-parents relating the stories of old Singapore to the younger generations, and as they talked about the Japanese occupation, the attention was drawn to the off-stage area. This was where the cast from Stage Pals came in, they acted out a scene of Japanese soldiers beating up a Chinese man, followed by attempting to rape a young girl.

As the cast on-stage moved on to talk about how secret societies terrified the people back in the 60's Singapore, the cast from Stage Pals again drew the attention of the audience by acting out a scene of gangsters collecting protection money from hawkers, beating up those who refused to pay. The gangsters later tried to get fresh with a lady passer-by, but were chased off by the hawkers and some student leaders.

Overall, the cast from both drama groups did an excellent job despite waiting several hours for their turn as the sketch was the last item for the night. Stage Pals would like to thank her cast, especially those from the Stage Art Group who were kind enough to help with the sketch. Their portrayals of the Japanese soldiers, gangsters, victims etc were so real that the some members of the audience were 'frightened' away by them. Great job!

Stage Pals staged 2 impromptu sketches at the above event: In the 1st sketch, 6 phrases were sought from the audience and the actors had to conjure up a sketch in which they can only utilise these 6 phrases as their lines. The 2nd sketch required the actors to use only the props supplied by the audience and incorporate them in their performance.

Of all the projects that I had coordinated, this was the one which really made me standing at my toes! -Gulp!- However, we scored many 'FIRSTs' in this performance. It was the FIRST performance I ever had myself calling people up the very last minute.(actually the night before lah!) Trust me, it was not easy if not for the help of kind souls like Xuezhen, Jonathan, Meiping, Dacheng and Xueling. The show was also Stage Pals' FIRST performance in a Military Camp!(we have to thank MAJ Anthony Loke for his recommendation!) Who knows, sooner or later we may even get to perform at the Istana?!

We scored the last 'FIRST' when we actually took only 15 mins to come up with 2 impromptu performances, the "6 items" and "6 phrases" sketches. We divided ourselves into 2 groups of 3 to discuss the plots. And the results? We were well received by the audience which were mainly made up of families of the officers and regulars. The 2 shows were so entertaining that the children who were seated in the front row came up to join us in the second impromptu sketch! We were also praised for our efforts by the organisers.

These are the things that we have to think in 15 minutes, can you people do it?

List of 6 items
1) Nail Polish
2) Ball Point Pen
3) Card holder containing some cards
4) A photograph of kids having a ride on military vehicle
5) Bubble solution
6) Toy - DigiMon

List of 6 phrases
1) "You are SO FAT!"
2) "You are SO SEXY!"
3) "I was talking to him."
4) "No comments."
5) "You maybe short but you adorable!"
6) "Why me?!"

By Nelson Tong

'The Spirit of Christmas' was a short X'mas play specially written and performed for the children of Clementi Student Care Services as part of their Christmas celebrations. The play involved many colourful characters like a witch, a Christmas fairy, an elf and of course, Santa Claus. It revolved around Santa being captured by an evil witch but was later saved by the Christmas fairy with the help of some children. However, Santa was not angry at the witch for being nasty to him, instead he instructed the fairy to turn the witch into a kind-hearted person. The moral of the play was to always be kind and forgiving to others, which is undoubtedly the true spirit of Christmas. The play was very well received by the children, as could be seen from their active participation in the course of the performance as well as in the acting game that was played after the show.

I do not know why, but, whenever we have any charity performance for children, the response from Stage Pals' members will always be spontaneous. I have no trouble in getting actors for this charity act. I believe the reason behind it is quite obvious - the 'MAGICAL' charm that a child possesses.

This time round, we even got 3 non-members who volunteered to help out in the show - Jonathan's friends, Josephine and Agnes, and my friend from the IRC, Shiqi.(whoever said IRC is full of CRAP?!)

Apart from them, we also had people like "XiaoDe"(Yanjun) and Yanru helping us out, they are finally 'DEFROSTED' from our 'COLD STORAGE' list. Xueling and Ashley Chai lend their helping hand too.(Oh, did I ever tell you people that Yuda's alias is ASHLEY?) By the way, I want to thank Xueling for making the MARVELOUS Santa costume for me!(she really amazed us with her enthusiasm.)

When we arrived there, the volunteer workers and the children were in the midst of playing games.(the children's age group ranges from 5 to 12.) We were then shown to another room where we quickly 'transformed' ourselves into 'FAIRY TALE' characters!

I really wished you people were there to see the response from the children, they were so 'enchanted' by the story that most of them were screaming at the characters when they were doing something wrong. They were pleased when we distributed sweets during the performance. At the end of the show, we asked 6 children to imitate some of the characters in the show. Three of them wanted to imitate Santa Claus(ME!) and the others tried Christmas Fairy(Agnes) beating up the Witch(Xueling). All of us ended up feeling happy, not because that we have finally ended our performance, but, we were able to bring smiles to all the children's faces.

By Nelson Tong

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