How I Became An Award-winning Theatre Director, Playwright, Actor and Designer

Oliver Chong joined the theatre industry at age 25 as an actor and set designer, added the title of director and playwright to his repertoire at age 29 and won his first major award at age 34. He has since amassed 23 nominations and 5 awards for his work in the industry. We asked him how he got his career to where it is today.

Q: How did you end up in the theatre industry in the first place? What was your first job scope and how did you get the job?

A: I’ve been performing since I was four and there wasn’t a single year that I wasn’t on stage. However, pursuing theatre as a career used to be a far-fetched idea as it was much more difficult to make a living out of it. It was until 2002 that I decided to burn all bridges and give it a shot and have never looked back since. I figured theatre was the only thing that I wanted to do and I was still young and I could afford to regret later. First job scope was acting. I got the job through a referral and audition. 

What were the early days of working in the industry like? Did you struggle or was it easy? Did you think you would be a big success eventually or did you have no idea what to expect?

Very low to no pay. I struggled, of course. It was very difficult financially and I was feeling the stress of having to explain what I was doing to my family and friends. I wasn’t expecting anything from it, and all I wanted to do was to be able to keep practising theatre until the day I die. 

How did you end up as a director-playwright-actor-designer? And where did you learn all the skills needed for such a vast variety of roles?

Growing up, I have been very fortunate to have met many great acting mentors along the way, learning the ropes on the job and training under them.

I was interior design trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and have worked as an interior, graphic and product designer. I decided to try my hands at set designing, some 20 years ago, for a production for which I was an actor. The director was game enough to let me try and I have been designing all the sets for my productions since.

I have always been curious about the workings behind playwriting and directing. I picked up these skills from books and largely from close observation and study of the directors and playwrights whom I admired, while working with them over a long period of time. These playwrights and directors have been very generous and helpful with all my queries. My skills in acting and designing have also informed the way I write and direct, and vice versa. 

How did you win your first award and what was it? Was there something you did differently for that particular project that you hadn’t done before?

My first win that was an individual award was Best Original Script for Roots. There was nothing that I did differently for that particular project except that every project is different.

What was your routine like in the years/month/weeks leading up to you winning your first award?

Same old. Work, work and work. My work is my life.

Now that you are established, what is your routine like? Has it changed in any way?

Same old. I am a very boring person in life. 

How do you spend your weekends?

Work. If there is no work, it will be either catching up on sleep, gatherings or outings with family and friends, or simply having a good dinner with my wife.

What advice do you have for someone hoping to become a full-time, award-winning theatre professional?

You shouldn’t hope to win awards. Our work is not about winning awards or pleasing the judging panel on any award. All awards are, or will inevitably become, political and therefore it is their game, not mine. You can only focus on improving yourself and giving it your all with every work that you make. 

Can you map out a recommended path for people who want to be award-winning theatre professionals to follow?

Be truthful, sincere, hardworking and humble. Be a perfectionist. Do not think about winning awards.

What are the key things/people/situations that enabled you to become an award-winning theatre professional, in your opinion?

Luck. While I do take pride in my many quality works that are the result of hard work and with support from a very strong team, the serendipity of being in alignment with the politics of an award’s agenda is often more crucial for a piece of quality work to get recognised.

How did working in theatre and winning awards for it change you as a person? Or did it not change you?

I guess I was moulded into who I am, partly because of practising theatre. As it all started in my formative years, I would never know otherwise. Winning awards did not change me as a person.

If you could go back and replay your career in the theatre industry all over again, what would you do differently?

Nothing.

What were you like as a child? What about as a teenager and young adult? How did you change at every decade? Or did you not change?

I don’t think a self-assessment can be accurate but my close friends would tell me that I have mellowed with age. I used to be more intense, quick-tempered and anal. I still am, perhaps less so.

Which major event in your life has made you who you are, in your opinion? Why do you think so?

The major event that has made me who I am would be quitting polytechnic without my parents’ knowledge and signing up for my interior design course at NAFA more than twenty years ago. Because that was my first most daring move in life. A change of course in life (no pun intended) and enrolling in an art school used to be less acceptable.

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Which 3 objects/people in your life can you presently not live without and why?

My wife, because she is my sanity check. Theatre, because it is the only thing that I want to do. Pay cheque, because I need to survive.

Of all the objects you bought in the past year, which has most positively impacted your life? Why?

My late father’s car. It is the only thing left that I can have to remember him by.

Which person do you wish LUCK-IT would interview for you to learn from? Why? 

God. I wish for wisdom.

What’s the worst advice you’ve been given, or have heard people giving? And what’s the best?

“You can be anything you want to be, you just have to decide and grind” is the worst advice because it doesn’t work that way.

“Strive for the true, the good and the beautiful” is the best advice because that is the only thing worth doing for the meaning of our existence.

What is the most helpful thing anyone has ever done for you?

Tan Beng Tian bringing me into the family of The Finger Players [a theatre company in Singapore] fifteen years ago. 

Oliver is now 43 years of age, and recently won Best Actor at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards for A Fiend’s Diary—a play he directed, acted in and also designed the set for. He remains a director-playwright-actor-designer and artistic director of ODDDCROP Theatrical Productions today. You can follow his work on his website, www.odddcrop.com, and Facebook Page or ask him for career tips using the comment box below. 

More interviews about other types of careers available here.

Photographs courtesy and copyright of Oliver Chong, Tuckys Photography. Interviewer: Sy
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