T:>Works embraces ageing

Its new AGEncy fund will go towards organising arts festivals by artists 60 years and older

- Clement Yong

Maverick theatre company T:>Works, better known among those of a certain vintage by its previous marquee name Theatre Works, has never been fearful of the radical rebrand.

Once Singapore's flagship English-language theatre company when it was founded in 1985 by actors Lim Kay Tong, Lim Siauw Chong and Justin Hill, its trajectory has been less marked by evolution than impatient, paradigmatic leaps.

Over two weekends in July, its 40th birthday bash, DnA Fest, is a pastiche of film, drag-and-opera mash-up and late-night parties. This is worlds apart from its 1988 hit Beauty World, the first local musical, and when it attracted over 21,000 people to its Fort Canning theatre over three weeks for Michael Chiang and Dick Lee's Mortal Sins in 1995.

Now a certified quadragenarian, the company is, suitably, embracing ageing.

In the past few weeks, it has raised over $40,000 for its new AGEncy fund that will go towards organising arts festivals by those 60 years and older from 2026, in a retort to the industry's overfocus on the young, emerging artist.

T:>Works, which adopted its new name in 2020, is also opening up this new resource to fund residencies and other support programmes for artists of all stripes—be they theatre practitioners, painters, musicians or even gerontologists.

On the cusp of its fifth decade, artistic director Ong Keng Sen, 61, asks: "What happens when you are 60 or 70 and are no longer asked to make an exhibition or direct a play, because you're no longer seen to be trending?"

With a partner in his 90s, he understands viscerally that the AGEncy fund is crucial to senior artists creating freely and with daring. Existing schemes have their priorities in the wrong order: The National Arts Council's annual Silver Arts festival "appropriates the arts to look at ageing", he says.