“An epic piece of theatre spanning 100 years of Singapore’s history”
— The Straits Times
The first time we staged this play was at SIFA in 2015, at the newly refurbished Victoria Theatre. This was a festival commission, so we were only booked for 3 performances (of both part 1 and part 2) over 4 days. That was never going to be enough!
So we restaged it the following year, as part of Wild Rice’s Singapore Theatre Festival 2016. We were at the Singapore Airlines Theatre at Lasalle. This time we ran for 4 weeks.
In 2017, we were invited to the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide. That was a wild ride!
We were back to a festival schedule: 2 shows, over 3 days. This time, we performed at the Dunstan Playhouse.
Our next staging was supposed to be in 2020.
We all know how that went :(
We finally made it back in 2023!
This time at Wild Rice’s own Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre at Funan.
The thrust stage - with audience seats close to the stage on 3 sides - meant this was our most intimate staging ever.
Audience members really felt like they were in the hotel room with us!
8 years brought a lot of change.
5 new cast members, who brought fresh perspectives and energy to the work, asked us "Why?” and held us accountable. And were just brilliant!
9 returning cast (myself included) who had aged into our roles. Hopefully like fine wine. We rediscovered our characters. Remembered how much we loved playing them. Discovered new ways to bring them to life.
One of my roles felt like it landed for the first time.
Audiences loved it!
They laughed with us, cried with us, clapped and cheered for us as we took our bows.
This time, we ran for 5 weeks. That should have been plenty.
It was not enough!
We sold out midway through the run. 100%. Every seat was sold.
We cautiously offered a limited number of standing-room-only tickets, not sure if anyone would want to stand for a 5-hour performance. People had to queue up to buy these an hour before the show, first come, first served. Those sold out too.
Hotel is an incredibly demanding show.
14 cast members play over 70 characters, in 9 languages.
There’s singing, dancing, quick costume changes, fight scenes, love scenes, laughter, tears.
It’s intense.
But we also made sure to have fun! :)
But what if you missed it?
What if you were one of the many, many people who reached out to us to say that you just couldn’t manage to get your hands on a ticket?