2011 – 2020

Between 2010 and 2020, Toy Factory’s productions started to grow on the epic scale and using its experience from the past 20 years in creating crystallized artistic theatre that was embraced by the public, started to focus on original productions – new or adapted.

In this time, 8 musical productions were produced and staged by Toy Factory – including December Rains (2010, 2015), 881 the Musical (2011), Glass Anatomy (2013, 2014), Innamorati (2014, 2017), Innamorati 2 (2016) and Sometime Moon (2018). Of these musicals, Glass Anatomy and Innamorati toured to Shanghai and Beijing respectively.

Glass Anatomy featured Taiwanese pop star Della Ding Dang and – supported by a stellar cast – wowed audiences in Singapore and Shanghai alike with the heart wrenching story – reinvented for the stage by Goh Boon Teck.

Besides musicals, the company’s continued efforts in building a repertoire of locally written theatre meant that it sustained its determination for original theatrical stagings. White Soliloquy, written by Goh Boon Teck, directed by Jalyn Han and performed by Nelson Chia, graced the Esplanade Studio in 2011 and won Nelson the Life! Theatre Awards for Best Actor. Nelson went on to found his own theatre company Nine Years Theatre in 2012 with his wife Mia Chee.

The company’s productive seasons produced Deciphering the Peach Garden Oath (2011), Upstage (2015), GRIND (2016), Kumarajiva (2016), Here and Beyond (2018), Watching (2018) and The Transition Room (2019) – all original productions – while also restaging renewed and reinvigorated versions of classic productions like Equus (2011), Purple (2012), The Crucible (2013), Romeo & Juliet (2014) and PRISM (2017).

In 2018, Toy Factory and the Singapore International Festival of the Arts announced a 3-year commission to stage 3 progressive versions of A Dream Under the Southern Bough – a 16th century Ming opera masterpiece by revered playwright Tang Xianzu. The final version of this ambitious, 44-chapter theatrical adaptation will excitingly coincide with Toy Factory’s 30th Anniversary – due to be celebrated in 2020.