Medea will be seen onstage on September 26 and 27, which means deadlines are starting to loom. Pulling the production together plus my own acting and teaching commitments (a boy’s gotta keep things financially afloat!) means things will get hairy if I don’t plan well.
Marketing is a strange animal. It involves defining and carving out a direction in which you want your potential audience to receive your work. It’s the first point of contact with the audience. Having spent 7 years as a consultant in that field, and now teaching it, the most successful marketing campaigns are often judged by how incisive, clear and memorable they are. The more focused the message the better. When marketing art, I struggle with being too didactic and being generic. The buzz words I have in my arsenal sound foreign when applied to my own work. Should directors design the marketing for their work?
With much needed help from Chris Yap, a close friend and a visual artist/photographer/print-maker, the photo shoot creating the main image for the marketing is done. Without Chris, the process would have been a lot less creative, and I am grateful for his presence.
Here’s the first draft of the marketing synopsis. Comments and feedback are welcome please!
Medea, granddaughter of the Sun, murders her king father and brother for the sake of love to help Jason of Argo. Banished from her homeland, she marries him and bears two of his children. Despite her sacrifice, Jason abandons Medea to marry the daughter of King Creon of Corinth where they have sought asylum. Forsaken in a foreign land, Medea enacts an apocalyptic revenge on her once-lover to reclaim her being. The allegory of Medea burns with betrayal, lost dreams and a desperate love. It is a warning.
This new staging of Medea rips down the curtains to bare a naked stage, and audiences sit onstage with the actors. Using theatrical languages borrowed from the culture of Singapore’s past, present and future, this staging features original compositions by Benjamin Lim Yi (Teng Ensemble) and movement inspired by Bharatanatyam. The process asks, “How does the Singapore actor act for her or his society? Where do theatre and the actor matter in Singapore?” Enacted by Ruby Jayaseelan (choreographer), Chad O’Brien, Farah Ong, and Jo Tan.
Show Times: 8pm, September 26 and 27, 2014; and 3pm, September 27, 2014
Performance Venue: Lasalle SIA Theatre
Tickets: $15
Directed by Tan Shou Chen. Medea is the culmination of Shou Chen’s work under The Substation’s Directors’ Lab. For more information about the Lab and the process, please visit http://www.shouchen.net/directors-lab/
Tan Shou Chen 