Joel Tan
Playwright
I first met the multitalented Joel Tan when documenting Checkpoint Theatre’s devised musical City Night Songs (2012). He was one of its co-composers, performers, and music directors. Joel is focusing on playwriting nowadays, and we had a wonderful conversation on all types of things that get our hackles up. In his case it is colonialism.
“. . . because there’s something in the lights, the way
a spot now casts something red on to the body of an actor,
that makes him look like he’s on fire,
that makes them both, the man and the woman, think
of the incandescent heat of the sun
that sets us aglow with all the history of our bodies and
of the everyday knowledge of the things that exist
between the woman and the man.”
— extract from Joel Tan, “Collect, Cumin, Coriander, Chardonnay & Cashews,” 2022