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All The World’s A Sea: Practice Debuts New Intercultural Epic at Singtel Waterfront Theatre

Singapore’s longest-standing bilingual theatre institution, The Theatre Practice (Practice), is thrilled to announce its 2024 mainstage show, All The World’s A Sea, in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. This intercultural and interdisciplinary production will feature an international team of artists from Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Nanjing, and the USA. The epic performance will debut at the Singtel Waterfront Theatre from August 1 to 4, 2024.

Rootless and Wandering: In Search of Identity

Originally commissioned in 2016 by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Practice’s I Came at Last to the Seas debuted at the Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts 2018. It was the first-ever commission for Huayi at the Esplanade Theatre by a Singaporean theatre company.

Six years later, in the wake of a global pandemic, wars, regional conflicts, climate crises, and rising inflation, the theme of displacement remains ever relevant. Director Kuo Jian Hong revisits these themes in All The World’s A Sea, reflecting on the forced displacements and identity struggles in today’s world.

Five Minutes Into the Future: A Multilayered Narrative

All The World’s A Sea dives into the complexities of individual and collective identity, blending speculative fiction, classic literature, and true stories collected by playwright Liu Xiaoyi and script researcher Ng Mun Poh. Inspired by the Buddhist philosophy of Ayatana (six senses), the production presents the journeys of the uprooted and displaced through six interconnected stories set in an imagined near-future shaped by current realities.

Stories of Displacement and Identity

The narrative features:

A soldier with a captured nose
A girl whose ears are lost in translation
A baby with aberrant eyes
A father’s body caught in limbo
A hacker searching for an escape
An outsider with a transplanted tongue

Each fable portrays individuals faced with displacement, weaving past, present, and future into a complex web of human experiences.

An International and Interdisciplinary Theatrical Epic

All The World’s A Sea is brought to life by a critically acclaimed group of artists from across the globe, including:

Set designer Szu-Feng Chen
Costume designer Max Tan
Lighting and multimedia designer Genevieve Peck
Movement director Okorn-Kuo Jing Hong
Hair designer Ashley Lim
Makeup designer Bobbie Ng (The Make Up Room)
Composer and music arranger Joel Sim
Sound designer Guo Ningru

The production will feature eight performers, including Practice associate artists Ang Xiao Ting and Ng Mun Poh, veteran performer Hang Qian Chou, Kunqu performer Zhao Yu Tao from Jiangsu Performing Arts Group (Kun Opera Theatre), Hong Kong Repertory Theatre resident artists Vivian Chan and Clinton Zhang, Sunson Theatre Artistic Director Chang Wei Loy, and Taiwanese film and television actor Lee Ming-Che.