The Unsung Heroes

The run of BPLL in KLPac has finally come to an end. A great thank you for all of you who came for the show, some even watched it more than twice – please take a double, triple hats off from all of us! The show wouldn't have stayed open till scheduled closing without your support.

Okay, this may NOT be true 'cause we've booked the venue so we die-die-we-must-stay throughout the entire duration. But we must confess: every night before the show opened we did peeped at the backstage monitor to see the crowd, worried that audience might:

a) gave up driving in a jam
b) police road blocks along Jalan Ipoh
c) early Raya out-of-town holidays
d) fong-fei-kei
e) all of the above
f) other (please specify) ____________________________ reason(s).

An empty theatre is a taboo: so you get the message, sincerely from us – your presence at the audience seat, a silent smile in your heart; or even the lightest dutiful applause, have motivated all us to keep the show going every night.

In one of a few chain emails circulated amongst the cast members lately, one message from Soon Yoon gave me a harsh reminder: We tend to always thank the directors, playwrights, producers or choreographers, very often enough we steal the light away from the production crew. So the next half of the entry is for them: the Unsung Heroes of Broadway Parodies Lagi Lah!

Lim Ang Swee lighting designer
John Siew sound engineer
Loi Chin Yu set builder
Dominique Divorsine costume designer
Shalini Kalimuthu stage manager, publicist
Jasmine Tham production manager
Ian Chow theatre manager
Michael Thomas production manager
Mohd. Nazri Osman lighting operator
Ooi Yit Boon sound operator
Seshadri Kalimuthu PA to executive producer
Eva Wong assistant stage manager
Ramon Matthew Singho front-of-house manager
Shangari Subramaniam administrator
Suresh Rasammanikam (TAS) Farah Diana (KLPac) box office supervisors

...feeling more guilty now as I'm quoting the names shamelessly out from the programme, I hardly know half of them!

My personal thanks would be to Shalini Kalimuthu 'Shalu' & Eva for handling almost everything backstage yet constantly got yelled at when props didn't come on stage on cue. Hats off to both of them as I had underestimated how heavy those panels were until I had to haul one all by myself! Cheers to girl power.

Also to Boon who constantly shines the light on our faces, literally, every time before we went on stage to check that our microphones were in place. Especially for those whose microphones hate their owners - namely Shahila and myself, we owe you a big thank you and this one is for you!

Not to forget Ann Chung, the wardrobe assistant, whose one of the name didn't make it to the program. She picks up everybody's sweaty, dirty, smelly laundry... ahem, to word it nicely – she ensures we have clean, crisp costume before every show. She stations to ensure there's no room for wardrobe mulfuction, especially for Sham's oh-so-fabulous Sari. I sincerely wish to appologise on behalf of Glamo for asking her to wash his (smelly) socks. Eek. Please don't do that to Ann anymore, okay? Be nice or she'll make a Janet-Jackson's-halftime-show-at-the-Super-Bowl out of you. *Bomoh's evil laugh*

Also there are lots of other names did not even make it to the booklet, like the team at the souvenir booth who greeted all of us everynight as we sneak passed the crowd during intermission; those sweet girls at the door who wishes us to break another leg, eventhough after two shows we all ran out of legs to break; the gribs and best boy technicians who fanatically trailed Tria and the bomoh with follow spots; also those who worked answering phone calls from customers negotiating for more discounts over the boxoffice... the list goes on and on.

To those who will not join us for the tour, we hope to be able to work with all of you in many many projects in the future.

Sekian, terima kasih.