Beauty World (musical)

Beauty World is a Singaporean musical written by Michael Chiang and composed by Dick Lee in 1988. Drawing on the tradition of 1950s black-and-white Cantonese movies, it tells the story of a young Malaysian girl who comes from Batu Pahat to 1960s Singapore in search of her father and winds up in the eponymous sleazy night club.

Written in English with some Singlish elements and Singaporean slang, it is one of the best known musicals of Singapore. With , which was also written in 1988, it is one of the first two Singaporean musicals.

The cast of the first production included Jacintha Abisheganaden, , Ivan Heng, Tan Kheng Hua, and Claire Wong.

Beauty World toured 4 cities in Japan and a run in Singapore in 1992. In 1998, Beauty World was remade for Television for the President's Star Charity Show, and starred Sharon Au as Lulu, and Evelyn Tan as Ivy.^[1] The remake brought much acclaim and sealed its mass popularity with Singaporeans.^{[citation needed]}

An amateur production took place on April 15, 2006 at the University of Chicago. Dubbed Return to Beauty World it was directed by Andy Tan a fourth year economics major in the college.

The King's College London Malaysian Singaporean Society put up a student production of Beauty World at The Albany in Deptford South-East London on 2 and 3 March 2009. It was produced by Debra Lam and directed by Kang Yanyi.

In 2008, W!LD RICE, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the musical and staged the musical for the forth time at the Esplanade Theatre. The musical starred , Neo Swee Lin, and also featured Daren Tan, Project Superstar II winner.^[1]

In 2014, a student production of Beauty World was put up by National University of Singapore (NUS) College of Alice and Peter Tan (CAPT) on 8 February,^[2] which opened to a 900-strong audience at the at NUS and was attended by its scriptwriter and playwright, Chiang. The musical was produced by Ong Wee Yong and Sherilyn Tan, directed by Heidi Chan and took its musical direction from Elaine Hoong.

In 2015, the musical was staged for the seventh time at the Victoria Theatre, with composer Lee as the director instead.^[3] The production was set to be in a darker mood and starred Jeanette Aw, and Janice Koh.^[4][5]

References[]

This musical theatre related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t