Notes from The Boy Inside

By Wang Liansheng

Year 3, Faculty of Law


(From left) Xu Hao, Liansheng and Alvin

Photo by Jootz See - Back Alley Creations

Undeniably, my third year in NUS has been the most exciting varsity year yet. Looking back, the journey has been a tumultuous but enriching one. 2012 saw the debut of my first full-length work, The Boy Inside, where I had the opportunity to work with two very accomplished professionals, Mr Alvin Tan, Founder and Artistic Director of The Necessary Stage, and Mr Low Xu Hao, Chairman of the Choral Directors' Association, Singapore.

The Boy Inside is a piece of work inspired by my battles with eczema. It deals with issues on eczema, parenting and the desire to seek perfection. All these were themes which I was struggling with as I was growing up.

Alvin and I started working on the script in November 2011. Before we knew it, the script had gone through countless drafts and we arrived eventually at a final product that was far more polished than my first raw version. From him, I learnt much about the artistic creation process, and the need to think and re-think about my choices. Suddenly, every word had to have a purpose, every scene had to be well-composed, every character had to have his/her story told. Xu Hao provided me with much support in the aspect of musical accompaniment, and inspired me with the possibilities enabled by live orchestration.

Besides artistic creation, production work is another realm of involvement that I love. I have been a stagehand, a dresser and a stage manager. Theatre attracts me most with its collaborative character. The collaborative effort transcends nationality, race and class. Regardless of their different backgrounds, all members of a production crew are driven by the same desire to ensure that the best performance is put up. To me, that alone is extremely inspiring and motivating.

Being part of the ExxonMobil Campus Concerts Crew, a member group of the NUS Centre For the Arts, gave me many opportunities to be immersed in such collaborative theatre work. The exposure led me to appreciate the different aesthetics of various dance genres, and gave me insights into other forms of performance. Most recently, I had the chance to stage manage NUS Dance Synergy's Hereafter, the closing show of the NUS Arts Festival, for which I was extremely grateful.

Third Year has really been a blast. It was no easy feat juggling my artistic involvement and legal training at the faculty, but the overall experience has been an extremely meaningful and enlightening one, which I would not have exchanged for anything else.

The Boy Inside was one of over 40 shows presented at the NUS Arts Festival held from 9 to 25 March 2012. More on the Festival ...
NUS Arts Festival 2012
Story on AsiaOne's Edvantage portal

3 April 2012