LATE COMPANY – Programme

Pangdemonium 2019 Season

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Starring

Janice Koh Adrian Pang Set Design by

Lighting Design by

Petrina Dawn Tan

James Tan

Karen Tan

Edward Choy

Xander Pang

Costume Design by

Sound Design by

Leonard Augustine Choo Jing Ng (Ctrl Fre@k) Directed by

Tracie Pang Produced by

Tracie Pang & Adrian Pang

Victoria Theatre • 22 Feb to 10 Mar 2019 The duration of this performance is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, with no interval.

Late Company was first produced in 2013 by Suburban Beast and surface/underground theatre in the SummerWorks Performance Festival (Toronto).

Late Company is produced by permission of the Author and Marquis Literary (Colin Rivers) www.mqlit.ca

Season Sponsor

We live in a world of growing complexity and contradiction. Technology has made the world smaller, connected people, shrunk distances.

It has enhanced efficiency, increased productivity, improved lives.

But at times, it has also divided humankind, exacerbated social ills, and created borders in a borderless world.

As societies, we’ve had to grapple with the good and bad. As a corporate, we’ve asked ourselves what we can do to harness advances in technology for the good of mankind, and to improve lives and livelihoods. These questions are the driving force behind the bank’s ethos – Live More, Bank Less.

This is why DBS is proud to continue our partnership with Pangdemonium, a theatre company that explores modern-day societal issues in an authentic and artistic manner. Our hope is that a greater understanding of the world we live in will spur us into action, in big and small ways, as we forge ahead towards a brighter tomorrow.

Karen Ngui Managing Director and Head Group Strategic Marketing and Communications DBS Bank 5

Pangdemonium 2019 Season

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.�

We’re all familiar with bullying archetypes: the playground thug pushing the scrawny kid off a seesaw; the high school uber-jock publicly humiliating the nerdy chess club captain; the office boor constantly undermining his timid colleague; the global superpower using sanctions and/or missiles to hold another nation to ransom.

But bullying has evolved.

And it is no longer the usual suspects who are bullies/ victims. Many of us are now making ourselves vulnerable to toxicity of anonymous strangers and virtual “friends”. Because we choose to have everything – from our mundane daily activities, to our innermost thoughts and feelings - aired for public scrutiny, it is all too easy for any one of us to become a victim of trolls, just as it is alarmingly easy for any one of us to become a troll.

Pandora’s box has been opened, unleashing the egocentric, narcissistic, self-righteous, bigoted, sadistic, and yes, bullying sides of our nature.

And that’s what the meek are inheriting.

world, mental health in our age of anti-social media alienation, the “snowflake/strawberry generation” phenomenon, society’s collective duty in raising children, creating a support system for “the meek” to help them protect and empower themselves, and exactly what kind of world we are leaving future generations to inherit. It also examines our human capacity for vindictiveness and revenge on one end of the spectrum, and compassion and forgiveness on the other, and questions our ability to learn lessons from it all.

Our heartfelt thanks to our Season Sponsor DBS, for your faith in our “ass-kicking adventures in theatre”; Ascendas-Singbridge; the Canadian High Commission; our production supporters; and our wonderful White Knights Anthonia and Leo.

Props to our cast for being brave, honest and never (too) late for rehearsals. Much gratitude to our fabulous Creative, Production, Technical and Stage Management Teams for being brilliant AF. And lots of love and appreciation to the amazing Pangdemonium family for your strength, patience and kick-ass-ness.

Artistic Directors’ Message

Say that to a kid who’s being tormented by bullies until he/she wants to leave it all behind, let alone waiting to inherit it.

Thanks also to our loyal Season Ticket holders and fab Friends of Pangdemonium, for motivating us to keep pushing forward into the future.

Speaking of which, in line with our 2019 Season’s theme of “Present Tense/Future Perfect”, our next production in May is the world premiere of This is What Happens to Pretty Girls, a powerfully provocative play exploring and exploding the #MeToo and Time’s Up zeitgeist. The present certainly is tense, and the future may never be perfect, but surely we must all work towards making it a little better. For the sake of our children.

For the present, we’re grateful for your gracious company at Late Company.

Lots of love,

Adrian & Tracie Pang Artistic Directors

Late Company explores the devastating effects of cyberbullying, the respective psyches of bully and victim, and communal and individual accountability in breeding a cycle and culture of bullying.

But Late Company is so much more than “the cyberbullying play”, because it addresses so many other challenges affecting us all: an ever-mutating youth culture, modern parenting in a fast-changing 21st century

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill wrote Late Company when he was 23. Speaking about his play now as a 30-year-old, Tannahill is uncomfortable talking about the idea that Late Company was inspired by or even written in response to a real-life tragedy.

The incident in question is the suicide of gay Canadian teenager Jamie Hubley, who was bullied at school, and who took his own life in 2011.

Asked if it would be acceptable to identify Jamie’s death as the place where his script started, Tannahill replied, “‘Starting point’ is actually the perfect wording for it. For me, the incident was a kind of departure point for a more fictional investigation of some of the questions that it raised.”

Hubley was the son of Ottawa city councilor Allan Hubley and his wife, Wendy. In Late Company, Joel, the dead boy, also the victim of bullying, was the son of Debora, who’s a sculptor, and Mike, a Conservative MP.

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Interview excerpt from straight.com Photograph by Lacey Creighton

Tannahill reveals that it wasn’t Hubley’s death as much as the response to it that got him going. He says that teen suicide “has become so normalized that it’s part of our narrative of queer adolescence. But if the suicide itself wasn’t shocking, how it was misconstrued and politicized was.”

The writer’s anger was fuelled, in part, by the “It Gets Better” video that the federal Conservatives in Ottawa released in the wake of Hubley’s death. In the “It Gets Better” campaign, which was initiated by sex-advice columnist Dan Savage, queer adults speak directly to the camera, reassuring queer youth, the inheritors of their legacy, that the pain they may be suffering will lessen as they become self-realized adults.

The playwright was also frustrated by some of his supposedly progressive colleagues who couldn’t understand why the video was so offensive to him.

These various levels of obliviousness made him want to explore “the kind of sociopolitical and sexual hypocrisy that I think exists across the board—and even within a supposedly socially progressive middle-class family”.

In Late Company, sympathies lie with Joel’s parents in the early going, but, as Tannahill says, “I think the spectre of blame shifts throughout the play, and by the end everyone has been cross-examined.” This includes Joel’s mum, Debora.

“Perhaps she convinces herself that she wants to forgive the perpetrator and the parents of the perpetrator. But I think what’s revealed in the piece is that she wants to punish.

She really wants to exact the pain that she has felt on those who have caused it. And, as her husband wisely points out, it’s not their pain to feel.”

Tannahill also wants to open up the terms of the discussion.

“The discourse around queer teen suicide is sometimes reduced to being about sexuality and tolerance, but I think it’s more complicated than that.” He points out that a predisposition to depression can also be a factor. “I don’t have any personal experience with queer teen suicide,” he says, before adding: “What I do have more direct exposure to—without getting into too much detail—is depression, the tyranny of depression and how that can cloud one’s judgment and world-view.”

Then there’s grief and how we deal with it. In Late Company, Debora and Tamara are seeking closure, but, Tannahill says, “I think closure itself is a bit of a fallacy. Living in a self-help culture that idolizes happiness, we get closure shoved down our throats, when, in fact, closure is something that may never come. Or it may take years and years to come. And tragedy is certainly something that we can fall back into. It can be cyclical; it’s messy. And yet we attempt to deal with grief in this clean, sealed way.”

Interview—Jordan Tannahill

But according to Tannahill, there’s a problem with the video. “It features 10 straightidentified MPs staring into the camera—and totally missing the point. These MPs have voting records that often run against the interests of LGBT youth. Here’s a party that’s cutting funding to LGBT health programs and youth programs and outreach programs across the country—the very initiatives that could prevent suicide. The hypocrisy, to me, reeked.”

Perhaps the character who provides the most hope is Curtis. “He’s the person who has the most honest reaction,” Tannahill observes. “He’s come to truly seek forgiveness. He really wants to reckon with what he’s done.”

Returning to the relationship between his script and Jamie Hubley’s death, Tannahill says: “To me, Late Company is not a biopic,” he says. “For me, it’s mostly about parents in the 21st century contending with the very real, new questions that face them.” And the inquiry goes beyond biological parenting: “It asks about our collective responsibility in child-rearing. What power do we have to improve the lives of our children, and our neighbours’ children, and the children of strangers?”

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

“I always thought I can do everything, but I couldn’t save my son.”

These heart-breaking words were spoken by Ms Kho, a Singaporean mother who lost her eleven-year-old son Evan to suicide in 2016.

Ms Kho recalls that at age ten, Evan began showing signs of being defensive, crying often and being hyper-sensitive to what people said about him.

She recalls: “Once he wrote me a note which said: ‘Help me, Mommy. I’m very lonely.’”

Acting on her instincts, she took him to a psychiatrist, who confirmed that Evan had depression, and also possibly Asperger’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum. People with the condition often find social interactions difficult and have narrow or obsessive interests, traits which Evan exhibited.

Veteran psychiatrist Munisada Winslow says children with Asperger’s are at higher risk of depression. “They can’t read social cues but they so want to have friends. And kids can be really harsh. They can make fun of you or bully you or totally ignore you, which is even worse.”

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Evan was put on medication and the psychiatrist warned that he should be monitored closely, as anti-depressants sometimes lead to suicidal thoughts.

In late 2016, Evan fell 17 stories to his death, a tragedy declared a “deliberate act of suicide”.

He had apparently taken his own life because of what he perceived to be disappointing results in his Primary 5 mid-year examinations.

Dr Ong Say How, senior consultant and chief of the Department of Developmental Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health, says that depression can strike at any age. From 2013 to 2016, IMH’s Child Guidance Clinics, which see patients aged six to 18 years old, saw an average of 190 new patients per year with depression.

In Japan, a recent study found that youth suicide rates was the highest in 30 years. The report showed that between 2016 and 2017, up to 250 elementary and high school age children took their own lives, for a variety of reasons, including bullying, family troubles and stress.

“Impulsivity plays a big role in the suicidal behaviour of young kids not thinking through actions,” said John Ackerman, a clinical psychologist and suicide prevention coordinator for the Centre for Suicide Prevention and Research at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Ackerman says that for some young kids, it can be hard to process or put the brakes on heightened emotional responses. Whereas teens may go through a series of thoughts and stages before engaging in suicidal behaviour, for young children, “an impulse towards suicide can escalate really quickly,” he said.

A study in 2016 found that kids under 12 who died by suicide were more likely to be diagnosed with attentiondeficit disorder than older kids. The authors say this could mean younger kids with mental health issues are more susceptible to impulsively responding to problems in their lives. “That doesn’t mean that most kids with ADHD are suicidal,” said Ackerman, “but it does highlight the role impulsivity might play.

Although kids tend to understand the concept of death by the fifth grade, “they don’t always understand the permanence of death in the same way,” he added.

Jamel’s mother wants more accountability from everyone involved. “I don’t want anyone else to feel like this, and I know my son doesn’t want anyone else to feel like this,” she said.

Ackerman also noted that another risk factor is being male: in his investigation, of the 1,430 children who took their lives from 1999 to 2016, 1,077 were boys -- about 75%.

Psychiatrists say that growing up can be challenging for many children and teens as they experience bodily changes and grapple with identity and existential issues, and that parents should take heed if their children display certain tell-tale signs, from irrational and bizarre behaviour to changes in appearance and expressions of hopelessness and helplessness, and seek help from a professional counsellor or psychiatrist.

“I think there are cultural differences in the ways that boys are invited to seek help and how that’s perceived,” says Ackerman. “I don’t think we do a good job of empowering our boys to recognize that being emotionally distressed is OK and that there are ways to get help. They’re at a point in their life where they rely on others to determine who they are, much more so than adults do. Once you start adding bullying and all the social media use of people giving them direct feedback about who they are all the time, that’s concerning to me.”

I Couldn’t Save My Son

In August 2018, Jamel Myles, a 9-year-old boy in Denver, Colorado took his life days after starting the fourth grade.

He had recently come out as gay to his mother, who believes that bullying was a factor in his death. “The same kids who picked on him last year were even meaner to him once he came out and said he was gay,” said Jamel’s mother. “They hurt my baby.”

“This is a time when kids should be becoming more resilient, more able to tackle challenges, more able to understand themselves in the social world -- and we’re finding out that kids are struggling. When we hear a young person making statements about wanting to end their life or they’re showing warning signs ... we want to take it very seriously and respond quickly to get them support,” Ackerman said.

“This might include increased supervision and introducing language to communicate when and how kids are distressed, educating parents and teachers to recognize when a kid needs help, how to discuss the topic nonjudgmentally and how to connect them with professional help. We’re not telling everyone to be therapists ... but what we do want is to make sure everyone can be part of that safety net.”

In the wake of her son’s death, Ms Kho says: “I want people to be aware of depression, which is still a stigma. I want them to know it is nothing to be ashamed of because depression is as much an illness as cancer... I hope by talking about Evan’s death, more people can be saved.”

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

“#1 country for children to grow up in”…Really?

In June 2018, a study by Save the Children revealed that Singapore is the “world’s best country for children to grow up in”.

Which seems to ignore the fact that a 2015 study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that Singapore has the third-highest rate of school bullying globally. And yet another study by Microsoft found that Singapore has the secondhighest rate – 58% – of online bullying worldwide, after China.

The OECD study revealed that fifteen-year-olds in Singapore experience more bullying than their peers in 50 other countries, and only the children of Latvia and New Zealand have it worse.

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The findings were released from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a threeyearly study run by the OECD. Students were asked to report how frequently they were exposed to six different types of bullying according to a four-point scale, from “never or almost never” to “once a week or more”. The six categories were: being left out, made fun of, threatened, property taken by other students, being hit or pushed around, and having nasty rumours spread about them. They measured physical, verbal and relational bullying, like social exclusion.

The countries were ranked according to an index based on an aggregate of the responses.

Britain was sixth-worst, Finland was 14th and Hong Kong 16th.

The least bullying was reported in South Korea. In Singapore, 5,825 students, randomly selected from 168 public schools, and 290 students from nine private schools, took the computer-based test.

Cyberbullying in Singapore

The study suggests that bullying could be more frequent in schools where teachers were perceived as being unfair, and where schools have a poor disciplinary climate, causing students to be more likely to engage in highrisk behaviour. Teachers who are seen as unfair may humiliate students or undermine their self-confidence, and these students then try to assert their superiority over vulnerable groups to regain their confidence. Just as distressing, bullying of children with special needs in mainstream schools continues to be prevalent, calling some to question the merits of the well-meaning “inclusive approach” to education.

Psychologists and youth counsellors say that, if the insidious damage is left to fester, youngsters could be more prone to self-destructive behaviour in the event of trauma or distress because of hyper-sensitivity and a tendency to hide their emotions from adults. Psychologist Daniel Koh, from Insights Mind Centre, said: “Negative comments on social media have the power to reinforce negative thoughts a person might have. They may not be able to deal with the situation in a positive manner and hence are responding to the distress by self-harming…If the depression is not detected, it may lead to more serious cases of self-harm or even suicide.”

In addition, the Microsoft study on cyberbullying found that Singapore and China were the two countries of the 25 surveyed where bullying online was more pervasive than in the real world.

Counsellors also say victims easily turn into bullies themselves because they learn to imitate behaviour that they know causes hurt. “Such behaviours are also normalised and they become desensitised.

The more abuse they receive, the more mean they become to others,” said Mr Poh Yeang Cherng, principal consultant at cyber-wellness consultancy firm Kingmaker Consultancy.

A study conducted by the Singapore Children’s Society (SCS) and the Institute of Mental Health in 2014 found that one in nine adolescents said they have been victims of cyber bullying and close to half of them have, in turn, bullied others online.

Young people, too, may need to square up to reality. About 89% of victims said they took no action against the bullying, mainly because they thought it was harmless. Among those who have observed cyberbullying happening to someone they knew, 83% did nothing. As it turned out, however, fewer victims (62%) could ultimately say the cyberbullying did not affect them.

Mr Shem Yao, assistant manager at TOUCH Cyber Wellness, said some social media platforms have features that allow users to remove traces of their aggressive action after a certain period of time; this emboldens bullies because their actions may not be traceable. “Cyberbullies may also employ cyber-baiting tactics by provoking victims to react in a negative manner, and then posting the recorded video or picture online to shame and embarrass the victim,” said Mr Yao. 13

Pangdemonium 2019 Season

A new Protection from Harassment Bill that covers online bullying was passed in 2014. The law, which prescribes fines and jail terms, also provides for the court to order counselling or probation in the case of child offenders. Those who are the target of false and malicious online content can similarly get orders requiring the content to be taken down and for correction notifications to be published in their place.

Welcoming more efforts to tackle cyber bullying is recent polytechnic graduate S, 20, who used to bully a fellow secondary school classmate online because she was not aware that her comments in cyberspace could cause as much hurt as criticisms made in real life. “This girl was clingy and she kept sticking with us despite our hints that we did not want her to,” said S. “So I used vulgarities and wrote mean things about her on Twitter and on her blog.” The traumatised victim confided in a friend, who persuaded her to tell a teacher about it. When the teacher counselled them, S was shocked to see the victim crying. “I didn’t show it but I felt sorry. Hiding behind the computer screen brought out the worst in me,” said S. “If you are bullied, speak up and stand up to it.”

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SCS senior director for youth services Carol Balhetchet said that for cyberbullying, warning signs include situations when children go into their own

worlds. After a distressing event that disturbs a young person’s sense of safety, they want to quickly get back into a “safe space”. Being ostracised, in particular, is one of the worst things that can happen to teenagers, as the teenage years are vital periods when core social skills are learnt through friendships. “They will try to isolate themselves from shame or guilt and withdraw into their own world, or refuse to talk about their problems,” said Dr Balhetchet. “The problem might seem like it’s a lot bigger because they don’t talk about it and, in the end, it’s the situation that controls them, not the other way round. This creates a vicious circle, where they might resort to extreme behaviour – such as self-harming, abusing substances or getting into fights – to exert some sense of control over their emotions.

Children take time to develop skills to deal with their social environments, so when they do react, they tend to be hypersensitive. Dr Raymond Cheong from Children/Youth Learning and Counselling Clinic said that in these instances, parents should listen to their children and not talk down to them. Dr Cheong said: “When they start to talk to you, don’t interrupt but keep listening. Sometimes, they don’t want a solution, but just want parents to listen to them first.”

In a survey commissioned by the Mediacorp programme Talking Point in 2018, three-quarters of children and teenagers in Singapore said they had been bullied online, and almost all of the victims did not inform their parents and did nothing in response to the bullying.

By far, the main reason victims gave for not saying anything about such experiences was that they did not want their parents to know about their personal life online. When asked about this, 14-year-old J said: “It’s too personal to tell people about cyberbullying.

Some parents don’t understand the child… Like my parents would just say, ‘Very common, just deal with it or fight back.’”

Respondents’ belief that their parents would suggest they ignore the cyberbullying was the second reason for their wall of silence. And the third was that they did not want to get into trouble by telling their parents about it.

Media and communication Professor Lim Sun Sun, from the Singapore University of Design and Technology, thinks another rationale could be weighing more on their minds than they might admit. “They’re afraid that their parents would cut access to technological devices,” she said, adding that one of the biggest challenges of parenting today is that “the parent might not be able to fully realise the impact of these technological communications platforms on their children’s lives… so the advice that they give their children may therefore seem a little bit misplaced.”

It is an urgent problem that brings many issues into the conversation: the perils of our digital age, the evolving mindscape of our youths, our flawed school system, societal accountability, 21st century parenting. At the end of the day, it has to be all about protecting our children.

Cyberbullying in Singapore

Help Hotlines TOUCH Cyber Wellness Tel: 1800 377 2252 Community Health Assessment Team (CHAT) Tel: +65 6493 6500, +65 6493 6501 Email: chat@mentalhealth.sg Singapore Children’s Society’s “Bully-Free Tinkle Friend” Helpline 1800-274-4788 (For Primary School students only) 1800-222-0000 bullyfree.sg@childrensociety.org.sg www.tinklefriend.com Samaritans of Singapore 1800-221-4444

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season 16

Bullying among youths is no longer isolated to playgrounds, and school hallways and classrooms.

Instead, our digital world has now extended harassment to cell phones, social media websites and other online avenues that are contributing to an alarming number of cyberbullying cases, many leading to tragic consequences.

In Singapore, many real-life cyberbullying stories somehow get hushed up. But there have been multiple cyberbullying cases around the world that garnered global attention:

Ryan Halligan Ryan’s academic and physical struggles made him the regular target of a particular bully at school. In February 2003, a fight between Ryan and the bully not only ended the harassment at school, but led to a supposed friendship.

However, after Ryan shared an embarrassing personal story, the newly found friend returned to being a bully and used the information to start a rumour that Ryan was gay. The taunting continued into mid2003, although Ryan thought that he had struck an online friendship with a pretty, popular girl. Instead, he later learned that the girl and her friends thought it would be funny to make Ryan think the girl liked him and use it to have him share more personally embarrassing material—which was copied and pasted into online exchanges with her friends. In October 2003, Ryan hanged himself in the family bathroom. After his son’s death, John discovered a folder filled with AIM exchanges throughout that summer that made him realise “that technology is being utilized as a weapon far more effective and reaching than the simple ones we had as kids.”

There were no criminal charges filed following Ryan’s death because no criminal law applied to the circumstances or especially catered to protecting cyberbullying victims. Seven months after Ryan’s death, Vermont’s Bully Prevention Law (ACT 117) was signed into law

by Governor Jim Douglas.

Real Cyberbullying Stories

Megan Meier Megan struggled with attention deficit disorder and depression in addition to issues with her weight. About five weeks before her death, a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans asked Megan to be friends on a social networking website. The two began communicating online regularly, although they never met in person or spoke on the phone. “Megan had a lifelong struggle with weight and selfesteem,” Megan’s mother Tina said, “And now she finally had a boy who she thought really thought she was pretty.”

Josh began saying he didn’t want to be friends anymore, and the messages became crueller when he concluded by telling Megan, “The world would be a better place without you.” The cyberbullying escalated when more individuals online began writing disturbing messages and bulletins. Tina said that it was about 20 minutes after Megan went to her room after leaving the computer, that she found her daughter had hanged herself in her bedroom closet.

Megan died the following day, three weeks before what would have been her 14th birthday.

Many cyberbullying articles were written on what was revealed to be another cruel prank turned into one of the most tragic suicide stories.

It was later that year when a neighbour informed Megan’s parents that Josh was not a real person. Instead, a social media account had been created by three other girls who used to be friends with Megan. One year later, the case began receiving national attention. While the county prosecutor declined to file any criminal charges in the case, the federal prosecutor charged the girls with one count of conspiracy and three violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for accessing protected computers without authorization.

A federal grand jury indicted them on all four counts in 2008, but U.S. District Judge George Wu acquitted them in August 2009 and vacated the conviction.

Tina worked closely to help Missouri legislature pass Senate Bill 818, unofficially known as “Megan’s Law” in August 2008.

In April 2009, U.S. Representative Linda Sánchez of California introduced the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act.”, which aimed to end the harassment of cyberbullying seriously – but unfortunately it was not enacted.

Tyler Clementi It was during the summer after his high school graduation that 18-year-old Tyler Clementi began sharing that he was gay. Clementi’s roommate during his freshman year at Rutgers University, Dharun Ravi, used a webcam in September 2010 to stream footage of Clementi kissing another boy. According to the Tyler Clementi Foundation, the teenager learned through his roommate’s Twitter feed that he had become “a topic of ridicule in his new social environment.” In September 2010, Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

Less than a week after Clementi’s death, Ravi and Molly Wei, the hallmate whose computer Ravi used to spy on Clementi, were charged with invasion of privacy. In May 2011, Reuters reported that Wei entered a plea deal requiring that she testify against Ravi.

A jury convicted Ravi on 15 criminal charges, and he earned early release 20 days after beginning a 30-day jail sentence.

The resulting Tyler Clementi Higher Education AntiHarassment Act requires colleges and universities to have anti-harassment policies and expanded bullying prevention programs.

Amanda Todd In October 2012, ABC News reported that the video Amanda Todd had posted to YouTube had been viewed more than 17 million times. In the video entitled “My story: Struggling, bullying, suicide, self-harm,” the British Columbia teenager uses flash cards to tell about her experiences of being blackmailed and bullied.

A little over a month after posting the video in September 2012, Amanda hanged herself in her home.

Amanda began using video chat in the seventh grade to meet new people online, and one stranger convinced the teenager to bare her breasts on camera. However, the stranger attempted to use the photo to blackmail Amanda, and the picture began circulating on the internet, including a Facebook profile that used the topless photograph as the profile image. “The Internet stalker she flashed kept stalking her,” Amanda’s mother, Carol Todd said. “Every time she moved schools he would go undercover and become a Facebook friend.”

Less than a week after Amanda’s death, Canada’s CTV News reported that lawmakers would consider a motion seeking to lay the groundwork for a national bullying prevention strategy.

The Amanda Todd Legacy, the official blog administered by the teenager’s family, strives to “serve as a bulletin board for all special events and initiatives to support anti-bullying education, help young people struggling with mental health issues and support educational programs that help people with learning disabilities.”

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Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

Cast Biographies

Karen Tan Tamara

Janice Koh Debora

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A respected stage and screen actor, Janice won the Life!

Theatre Award for ‘Best Actress’ for Proof and received nominations for Loo Zihan’s With/Out; Wild Rice’s Optic Trilogy; Pangdemonium’s Rabbit Hole; and Ovidia Yu’s Hitting (On) Women. She was nominated ‘Best Actress’ at the Asian Television Awards for The Pupil. Recent theatre include Pangdemonium’s The Father; SRT’s Hand to God; Ong Keng Sen’s Sandaime Richard; Wild Rice’s Supervision; and Finger Player’s Poop!. Janice has toured widely to festivals including the Edinburgh International Festival; Kunsten Festival des Art; and Shizuoka Performing Arts Festival. Film credits include Crazy Rich Asians; Unlucky Plaza; The Faith of Anna Waters; and Agent 47.

Karen has lived and worked in the UK, Kuala Lumpur, Vienna, Cairo, New Zealand, and France.

However, she is happiest in Singapore, where she is a working mum with possibly the best job in the world.

Late Company is her third production with Pangdemonium, after Frozen and Tango.

Karen believes that bullying doesn’t only exist in cyberspace, but also where old people are made to clean tables and remove trash; where teachers pay for parking in schools; where nurses do not get retirement benefits after a life of caring for others; where foreigners live in desperate conditions. Children learn bullying from adults who show that it’s okay to be superior to others.

Cast Biographies

Adrian Pang Bill Adrian’s UK theatre credits include Hair; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Comedy of Errors; The Magic Fundoshi; The Mens Womb; A Christmas Carol; Tormented; The Circles of Paradise; One for The Road; Sleeping Beauty; New Territories; Take Away and Privates on Parade. Singapore stage work includes the title roles in Hamlet, Macbeth and The LKY Musical; Twelfth Night; Forbidden City; Into the Woods; The Glass Menagerie; Little Shop of Horrors; They’re Playing Our Song; Barefoot in the Park; A Twist of Fate; Boeing Boeing; The God of Carnage; The Weight of Silk on Skin. For Pangdemonium: The Full Monty; Closer; Dealer’s Choice; Spring Awakening; Swimming with Sharks; Next to Normal; The Rise & Fall of Little Voice; Frozen; Circle Mirror Transformation; Tribes; Chinglish; The Effect; Falling; Rent; The Pillowman; Fun Home; Dragonflies; Peter and the Starcatcher. At the Straits Times Life Theatre Awards Adrian has won the Best Actor Award four times, for The Dresser; Much Ado About Nothing; Rabbit Hole and The LKY Musical.

The productions he is most proud of are his two sons Zack and Xander.

Xander Pang Curtis Edward Choy Michael Edward is a Master’s graduate from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Theatre Studies Programme with 18 years of experience as a professional actor. His roles on stage include Dr Goh Keng Swee in The LKY Musical; the Grand Eunuch in Forbidden City; and Paris in two productions of Romeo and Juliet. He was last seen on the big screen in Zombiepura, while on television he terrorised young contestants in OKTO’s Word Whiz or Slime Pit. Edward has extensive experience as a voice artist, starting with Japanese anime for the US market in 2004, and he voiced the lead puppet (a talking coconut!) in Disney’s award-winning Art Attack series in 2015. He has voiced over 400 radio and TV advertisements in his career.

In addition, he lectures parttime for the Theatre Studies department at the National University of Singapore, and works as a corporate trainer and role-player for MNCs and governments.

A recent graduate of the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme, Xander studied Theatre, Psychology and Language and Literature at a higher level. His professional theatre work includes the role of Nathan in The Full Monty; Young Moritz in Spring Awakening (both Pangdemonium); Fleance in SRT’s Shakespeare in Park production of Macbeth; and Dream Academy’s Crazy Christmas. He also produced, wrote, and performed in his own production of flush. His TV work includes Zero Hero and Wa-chew! Rise of a Kung Fu Chef (both OKTO); and Zack & Xander Can (Disney Channel).

Xander is excited to be part of this production of Late Company, before quickly being shipped off to Pulau Tekong for his National Service.

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

Creative Biographies Jordan Tannahill Playwright

Tracie Pang Director Tracie trained at Croydon College, London, and has since clocked up 25 years as a theatre practitioner throughout the UK and Asia, working with Quicksilver Theatre Company, Johnny Ball Productions, MuLan Theatre Company, Pimlico Opera, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Surrey Opera, and Theatreworks.

She was Associate Artistic Director for Singapore Repertory Theatre from 20062010, for whom her directing work includes The Dresser, The Pillowman, Boom!, Defending The Caveman, and The Office Party.

Tracie set up and established The Little Company, a theatre company creating quality plays and musicals for children aged 3-14, for whom she has written and directed numerous productions, including The Sound Collector, When I Grow Up, It’s A Hot Christmas, Grandma’s Journey, Little Victories, The Ugly Duckling and The Gingerbread Man.

In 2009 Tracie founded Pangdemonium Theatre Company with her husband Adrian, and went on to direct The Full Monty; Closer; Dealer’s Choice; Spring Awakening; Swimming with Sharks; Rabbit Hole; Next to Normal; Gruesome Playground Injuries; Fat Pig; The Rise & Fall of Little Voice; Frozen; Circle Mirror Transformation; Tribes; Chinglish; The Effect; Falling; Rent; The Pillowman; Tango; Fun Home; The Father; Dragonflies; and Peter and the Starcatcher. For Pangdemonium’s 2019 Season, she is directing Late Company

by Jordan Tannahill, the word premiere of This is What Happens to Pretty Girls, and the musical Urinetown.

At the Straits Times Life!

Theatre Awards, Tracie won the Best Director Award for Falling.

She also received Best Director nominations for The Dresser; The Snow Queen; The Pillowman; The Full Monty; Dealer’s Choice; Rabbit Hole; Next to Normal; Fat Pig and Tribes.

Tracie is very proud to have been awarded the 2015 AWA International Woman of the Year for The Arts, as well as the 2017 Women’s Weekly “Great Women of our Time” Award for Arts and Media.

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She is even more proud to be the mother of her two boys Zack and Xander.

One of Canada’s most distinguished theatre artists, Jordan’s plays have been translated into multiple languages and widely honoured in Canada and abroad. He is the youngest two-time winner of a Governor General’s Literary Award, Canada’s highest literary honour. His acclaimed play Late Company won first prize at the prestigious Herman Voaden Playwriting Competition in 2013. His books include Theatre of the Unimpressed and the novel, Liminal. Jordan’s work in film has been presented in festivals and galleries the world over. His virtual reality performance, Draw Me Close, produced by the National Theatre (UK) and the National Film Board of Canada, was presented at both the Tribeca Film Festival and Venice Biennale in 2017, and will run at London’s Young Vic Theatre in January 2019. In 2018, Jordan wrote the text for dancer Akram Khan’s celebrated final solo Xenos, currently touring internationally. From 2012 - 2016, in collaboration with William Ellis, Jordan ran the alternative art space Videofag out of their home in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood. Jordan currently lives between Budapest and London.

Lighting Designer James Tan (Pangdemonium’s Associate Artist/ Independent Lighting Designer) was conferred The Young Artist Award and awarded Arts Professional Scholarship by The National Arts Council of Singapore. He was recipient of Arena Stage The Allen Lee Hughes Lighting Design Fellowship, United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) - YD&T Lighting Design Award, USITT Commissioners Grant & International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) - Education Trust for IALD Enlighten Americas and The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards - Best Lighting Design 2017/2018. Master of Fine Arts in Lighting Design, University of California, San Diego. Selected Theatre Lighting Design Credits: The Father, Dragonflies & Peter & the Starcatcher (Pangdemonium!), Press Gang & Public Enemy (W!ld Rice), Disgraced & Hello Goodbye (Singapore Repertory Theatre), Red (Blank Space Theatre in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres On The Bay), Lord of the Flies (Blank Space Theatre with Sightline Productions) and Ah Boys To. Men. – The Musical (Running into the Sun). Selected Architectural Lighting Design: OCBC Garden Rhapsody: Rainforest Orchestra – Asia & Australia Edition (Gardens By The Bay) and The Art of the Brick® Exhibition by Nathan Sawaya (MBS ArtScience Museum). International & Regional Tour: Relatively Speaking (The British Theatre Playhouse) & God Of Carnage (Singapore Repertory Theatre).

Jing Ng (Ctrl Fre@k) Sound Artist/Composer Awarded with National Arts Council Scholarship, Jing graduated with First Class Honours from Rose Bruford College (UK) specialising in Performance Sound. He has a keen interest in sound design in theatre and dance; and enjoys

collaborative, devised and experimental works.

Singapore credits: Silly Little Girl and The Funny Old Tree; Titoudao; A Fleeting Moment; Lord of The Flies; Red Sky; Prism; Fundamentally Happy; Dragonflies; Art Studio; Attempts, The Father.

Nominated for Best Sound Design in the 2014 Off West End Theatre Awards for Outfox Productions’ Corpus Christi (UK).

Nominated for Best Sound Design in the 2018 The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards for Dragonflies (Pangdemonium Theatre Company).

Leonard Augustine Choo Costume Designer Leonard Augustine Choo is an international costume designer, textile shopper, and bespoke maker currently based in Singapore. He was the principal fabric shopper for the costume department of the New York City Ballet for 12 seasons, and has worked on over 75 unique ballets – more than a third of which have been new works or complete rebuilds.

Leonard designs costumes for dance, opera, theatre, and film, and his credits include Guards at the Taj (Singapore Repertory Theatre), iSing International Opera Festival (Suzhou, China), American Ballet Theatre Fall 2018 Campaign Video (Ezra Hurwitz), Moulin Rouge! Video Spot (Ezra Hurwitz), Forest Boy (NY Musical Theatre Festival), Out of the Basement (RADD Theatre Co., NY), Imagining Madoff and Pattern of Life (New Repertory Theater Co.), Don Giovanni (BU Opera Institute and Huntington Theatre Co.), and House (Boston Center for American Performance).

Leonard has draped and tailored for the Juilliard School, the television shows Gotham (FOX) and Crashing (HBO), TransSiberian Orchestra, Ballet Academy East in New

York, Manhattan School of Music, Barrington Stage Company, and Opera Omaha.

Leonard holds an MFA from Boston University, and in 2011 was the first costume designer awarded the Singapore National Arts Council Overseas Arts Scholarship. This is his Pangdemonium debut.

Creative Biographies

James Tan

Petrina Dawn Tan Set Designer Petrina Dawn Tan holds a Masters of Art with Merit in Collaborative Theatre Production and Design from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

She currently practices scenic design and conceptualised a range of projects including music festivals, circus acts and installations with elements of audience participation.

Her set and lighting design on Recalling Mother (Checkpoint Theatre) has been seen internationally at Esplanade The Studios: 2016, Singapore, Brisbane Festival 2016 and Oz Asia 2017, Adelaide.

Recent set and lighting designs include Guards at the Taj (Singapore Repertory Theatre), Here and Beyond (Toy Factory Productions) and Thick Beats for Good Girls (Checkpoint Theatre).

Set design credits include Sometime Moon the Musical (Toy Factory Productions) and The Consultant (Wag the Dog Theatre).

Petrina is excited to be working with Pangdemonium!

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

The Late Company Team Pangdemonium Team

Cast Janice Koh Debora Chew Karen Tan Tamara Chong Adrian Pang Bill Chong Edward Choy Michael Chew Xander Pang Curtis Chong

Creative Team Tracie Pang Director Jordan Tannahill Playwright Petrina Dawn Tan Set Designer James Tan Lighting Designer Jing Ng (Ctrl Fre@k) Sound Artist & Composer Ctrl Fre@k Sound Design Consultant Leonard Augustine Choo Costume Designer

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Production & Stage Management Team Sunitha Nayar Stage Manager Cat Andrade Assistant Stage Manager Natalie Lim Pei Ying Assistant Stage Manager Oops & Undo Technical Managers Noorasmidah Rashid Wardrobe Manager Daniel Sim Props Master Elim Lew (Ctrl Fre@k) Sound Operator No.1 Rachel Ong Sound Operator No.2 Lily Zorrilla Solk Production Intern

Tracie Pang Artistic Director / Producer Adrian Pang Artistic Director / Producer Debbie Andrade Company Manager Crispian Chan Creative Director / IT Katerina Tiapula Donor Relations Manager Kelvin John Lim Business Development Manager Jessamine Balakrishnan Marketing Manager Jasper Lim Creative Designer Victoria Lim Production Manager Leah Sim Production Coordinator Leau Xin Ning Company Senior Accountant Kimberly Wong Company Administrator Kusum Sandhu Sales & Ticketing Manager Wong Wei Li Ticketing Assistant Stephanie Street Resident Playwright James Tan Associate Artist

Pangdemonium Board Aun Koh Tan Kheng Hua John Currie Raeza Ibrahim Tracie Pang Adrian Pang

Support Us

Support Us With our commitment to producing work which is accessible, dynamic, and of the highest artistic and entertainment values, we are constantly reaching out to a diverse audience. We are extremely proud of our productions and it would not be possible without the generosity and support of our kind sponsors.

We are able to continue doing the work we do because our business partners believe in us. With your help, Pangdemonium will continue to be a leading force in Singapore’s theatre scene. By aligning yourself with Pangdemonium, your organisation will benefit from the opportunity to:

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Associate your brand with Singapore’s most exciting theatre company 2

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Demonstrate your commitment to corporate responsibility initiatives and giving back to the community Pangdemonium is a registered Charity with IPC status. (Registration number: 201229915M) and all cash donations are eligible for a 250% tax deduction.

To find out how your organisation can benefit from a sponsorship with Pangdemonium, contact our Business Development Manager Kelvin Lim at: kelvin@pangdemonium.com

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Reward and engage your staff in innovative ways 6

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

Become a Friend of Pangdemonium!

Join our philanthropic friends and help us tell the stories that you want to hear.

You will receive complimentary tickets, priority seating, discounts on additional purchases, pre-show drinks, backstage tours, and acknowledgements.

Pangdemonium Theatre Company Ltd is a registered charity with IPC status and your cash donation is eligible for a 250% tax deduction.

For information on joining our Friends of Pangdemonium programme, contact Katerina Tiapula at: kat@pangdemonium.com Donate directly at: www.pangdemonium. com/support-us/

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Thank you for being our Friends

Sincere thanks to all our new Friends who made their kind donations after this list went to print.

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Pangdemonium 2019 Season

Pangdemonium NextGen Education Programme The Pangdemonium NextGen Education Programme Programme was created to to nurture aspiring artists and technical practitioners. Since 2014, we have been providing opportunities for emerging talents to work with and learn from industry professionals, and cultivating both storytelling and performing talent, in a challenging and inspiring environment.

Our Triple Threats Workshop is designed for youths aged 13 to 19, who are interested in musical theatre. The programme aims to impart the fundamentals of storytelling through music, expression through song, vocal instruction and movement culminating in a special showcase. Our Triple Threats alumni have gone on

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to programmes in LASALLE and made their professional debuts in shows like Fun Home and The Great Wall.

The Pangdemonium NextGen Education Programme also seeks to discover and develop individuals with dynamic points of view and shape them into the next wave of Singaporean playwrights.

Our Write Here, Write Now Playwriting Mentorship is open to aspiring writers of all ages.

A promising applicant will be selected for one–on–one coaching with our Playwright in Residence, Stephanie Street.

With her guidance, mentees will produce a full–length play, which may be considered for staging and/or submission to playwriting competitions.

Our Apprenticeship Programme offers a full–time, production– long, professional experience for highly motivated and committed individuals who are looking to bridge the gap between their academic experience and a professional career in theatre. We offer apprenticeships in Stage Management, Production Management, Arts Management and Lighting Design.

We believe that our Pangdemonium NextGen Education Programme will help create the next generation of theatre professionals and sow the seeds for a vibrant theatre industry.

Check out www.pangdemonium. com/education for more information!

Acknowledgements

Tracie and Adrian would like to say a big thank you to the following for creating further pangdemonium with us on our production of Late Company.

OFFICIAL TIMEPIECE

OFFICIAL ACCOMMODATION

OFFICIAL COMMUNITY PARTNER SEASON SPONSOR

SUPPORTED BY

OFFICIAL F&B

Pangdemonium Theatre Company is a recipient of support from the National Arts Council’s Major Company Scheme for the period from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2020

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