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Art
Scene
52 | FireFlyz
Christopher Ling, the passionate director and co-founder of one of KL’s newest and
funkiest theatre companies, introduces theatrethreesixty and the vision behind the
passionate artistic company.
Stagecraft of the Highest Order
Introduceus toyour theatre company.
theatrethreesixty is all about the develop-
ment of performing arts in Malaysia,
with a focus on the English-speaking
medium due to it being the core strength
amongst our five founding partners. We’re
dedicated to telling stories that we want to
tell by nurturingwork fromall walks of life
and giving writers and actors safe spaces
to experiment and grow to help pave the
way for new Malaysian theatre.
What promptedyou to found the theatre
company inFebruary2014?
I completed a six-year stint as Director-
in-Residence with the Kuala Lumpur
Performing Arts Centre in December 2013.
The natural next step after that was to form
a theatre company so that each of the five
partners would then be able to bring their
creative energies together and perform
under one brand.
Whatwere theunexpected challenges of
settingup a theatre company?
There weren’t any unexpected challenges
per se. You don’t start a theatre company
without identifying and assessing the risks
involved – there is no place for unexpected
risks to not have been taken into account.
It may seem a simple affair in setting up a
theatre company in Malaysia but the true
test of a theatre company, in my opinion,
is it’s longevity and certainly the ability
to continuously produce quality work.
The sustainability of our core business is
important – you don’t want to be a one hit
wonder. The theatre company also has to
be constantly engaging their audience and
not just surfacing once a year.
Tell us about the local theatre scene.
The Malaysian theatre scene of late
has seen an explosion of new theatre
companies in the English- and Bahasa
Malaysia-speaking sections. I applaud
these people for playing their part in the
development of this country’s theatrical
W o r d s :
B r i a n n e J a s m i n A e r i a