Local theatre strikes out on TikTok, Telegram
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(Clockwise from front centre) Actor Benjamin Koh, artistic director Adeeb Fazah, producers Kristine Ng and Denise Dolendo, and playwright-actress Tiara Yap of The Second Breakfast Company. It is staging Search Engine, a production based on the Subaru Challenge which will appear on TikTok.
PHOTO: THE SECOND BREAKFAST COMPANY
All the world's a stage - and that includes your TikTok feed., Sarah Stanley
All the world's a stage - and that includes your TikTok feed.
With live performances still hobbled by Covid-19 restrictions, seven emerging theatre groups here have taken to social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to put on a new online festival.
The Strike! Digital Festival, which is spearheaded by groups Patch & Punnet and The Second Breakfast Company, is predominantly produced by millennials.
The festival, which kicked off yesterday and will run till May 2, is hosted on popular messaging application Telegram. Online productions are accessible via hyperlinks shared in a Telegram chat group.
The Second Breakfast Company artistic director Adeeb Fazah, 29, says: "Everything was severely disrupted last year and we were left with absolutely no way of doing live performances.
"The core idea of this festival was for us to not fade into the background and find new ways to be creative with what we currently have.
"Coming online, we are looking to reach audiences who are already on these platforms and may not be aware that they are the next generation of ticket buyers."
The Second Breakfast Company's offering, Search Engine, will appear as 17 short videos on TikTok tomorrow.
It is based on the Subaru Challenge competition, where participants vying for a Subaru car prize have to leave their palms on a vehicle for as long as possible.
"One of the things we wanted to capitalise on was people's short attention spans," says Adeeb.
"So with TikTok, we basically showed snippets of things happening during the challenge."
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STRIKE! DIGITAL FESTIVAL
WHERE Telegram, Blogger, Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, Wordpress and YouTube
WHEN April 21 to May 2, various timings
ADMISSION Free
Hey, I Moved!, a collaboration between groups Attempts and Spacebar Theatre, straddles five digital platforms - Blogger, Tumblr, Wordpress, YouTube and Instagram today.
Spacebar Theatre co-founder Eugene Koh, 27, calls it a "puzzle adventure" of sorts.
It explores the various online accounts of the protagonist, Carmen, in a work that is parttheatre, part-game.
Audience members will have to interact with the content on each platform to solve problems and piece together a password to unlock Carmen's old Wordpress account at the end.
This could take anywhere between 15 minutes and a few hours.
"The production is tied to the idea of digital nostalgia," says Koh. "By exploring what Carmen leaves behind on her blogs, we hope to remind audiences of their own pasts on the Internet."
Admission to the festival is free, though Adeeb says there will be options to make a digital donation at the end of each performance.
Interior designer and marketing manager Melody Ann Gibson is curious to find out how the productions will be adapted to the various social media platforms.
The 26-year-old says: "Sometimes we may have preconceived notions of what theatre is, but I feel it's important to be open-minded.
"I think this is a refreshing and novel concept and it's something that I'm really looking forward to."
