In the Press

Intercultural Theatre Institute turns 25: New team and new plans

If turning 25 heralds a quarter-life crisis, the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) is meeting the challenge head on. 

Founded in February 2000 by late theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun and director Thirunalan Sasitharan as the Theatre Training & Research Programme (TTRP), the school has had its fair share of existential crises.  

As Mr Sasitharan says, the school’s survival has been a matter of sheer will. The 67-year-old, the public face of the school, has already stepped back from management of the curriculum and, by the end of 2026, will focus on strategy, research and “telling the ITI story”.

Core members of the founding team – general manager Goh Su Lin, director of development Josephine Tan and director of administration Hannah Tan – have either retired or are leaving. 

A new team is stepping up. Actress Koh Wan Ching, 45, was appointed head of acting in 2023 and executive director Justin Deimen, 40, who has a long track record in film producing and media financing, joined in November 2024. Mr Andrew Nai, 51, director of private equity at Aura Group, has been on the ITI board since 2022 and took over as chairman in April 2024. 

Mr Deimen and Mr Nai are focused on the administrative and financial aspects of the school, while Ms Koh, as Mr Sasitharan characterises, is “the beating heart of ITI”, overseeing its three-year training programme. 

Mr Nai wants to raise enough for a $10 million endowment fund over the next five years. With the Government’s Cultural Matching Fund, this could mean $20 million for the school, which currently runs on a shoestring budget of $2 million a year.

— The Straits Times

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Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI): The Speakeasy of Singapore’s Theatre Education

“ITI’s vision is that of intercultural, embodied learning”, shares Koh Wan Ching. Training at ITI involves a dynamic exchange of ideas and knowledge between master teachers and students in deep experiential learning of Western Contemporary Acting and Asian Traditional Theatre forms, such as Noh Theatre from Japan, Beijing Opera from China, Wayang Wong from Indonesia and Kutiyattam from India. These immersions encourage students to explore the “unique aesthetics, dramaturgical strategies, and strict requirements” of each technique. 

- City Nomads

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Singapore’s independent arts clusters fight to lay down roots

Head of acting at ITI, Koh Wan Ching, 43, says: “You learn to let the messiness become some kind of drive to make art and experiment. A lot of the work that we do here may be experimental and may not be refined, but that’s what we want as a training ground for the students – to have a space to fail.”

Sasitharan concurs: “The cultural scene is an ecosystem of living organisms – and living organisms cannot always be engineered into efficiency.” 

- The Straits Times

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★★★☆☆ Review: RevoLOOtion by Intercultural Theatre Institute

Doom is inevitable, but perhaps we can learn how to make things less crappy.

When you think of a theatre course’s graduating show, forum theatre isn’t the first medium you might think of. But as far as showcases go, it’s a medium that provides a surprisingly large number of ways by which to challenge graduates, from quick-witted improv skills to the ability to immediately embody a character when replaying a scene.

- Bakchormeeboy 

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[Review] RevoLOOtion - Walk alone so it’s faster, or walk together so we can go further?

Directed by Li Xie, Intercultural Theatre Institute presents RevoLOOtion, an original production-cum-workshop that tackles questions of oppression, protest and community.

Coming across RevoLOOtion for the first time, you may ask yourself if this play is about a toilet. And, well, you wouldn’t be wrong. The central premise of ITI’s newest production does indeed revolve around a loo — one village’s only loo, which is under threat of being torn down by the government and on the verge of triggering a revolootion.

- Yaiza Canopoli 

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[Theatre Review] RevoLOOtion – Resolutely Seeking Alternatives

To most of us, we hardly give a second thought about lavatories because we expect them to be there. But the run on loo rolls in 2020 compels us to pause for thought. 

Perhaps this makes the urban Singaporean audiences amenable to RevoLOOtion, a showcase by the graduating cohort of the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI).

- Isaac Tan 

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Navarasa Sadhana: Chiseling a Complete Actor

Kutiyattam scholar G. Venu’s Navarasa Sadhana, a unique actor training methodology, that moulded numerous actors,  completes fifty workshops. 

Many years ago, Tirunalan Sasitharan, the celebrated theatre educator and co-founder of Singapore’s Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) happened to watch G. Venu,  the Kutiyattam scholar and performer, train a group of students at Natana Kairali, Irinjalakuda. He was awe-struck. It was Sasitharan’s first exposure to the ancient theatre form of Kutiyattam. He was fascinated by the force of the emotions which were being conveyed by the actors. He asked Venu if there was some way in which the contemporary actor could be enabled to convey the emotions in the same way. 

- India Art Review 

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[Interview] A Chat with Li Xie, director of RevoLOOtion

When I first found out about the premise of RevoLOOtion, a production presented by the graduating cohort of the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI), I was most intrigued by there being a workshop element which will explicitly require audience participation.

With safe distancing measures still in place, the premise seems to be intentionally going against the current. Could there be a radical re-conception of what constitutes as audience participation?

Following my interview with the cast of RevoLOOtion, I contacted the director, Li Xie, to find out more about her inspiration and process.

- Isaac Tan 

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Preview: RevoLOOtion by Intercultural Theatre Institute

This April, the newest graduating cohort of the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) will perform their new devised work, RevoLOOtion, at Goodman Arts Centre Black Box.

Directed by veteran theatre practitioner Li Xie, RevoLOOtion is an original production that takes an unvarnished look at the internal conflict and oppression that exists beneath the veneer of a community.

- Bakchormeeboy 

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[Interview] Looking at Oppression with RevoLOOtion

Next week, the graduating cohort of the Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) will present RevoLOOtion, a performance-workshop that looks at oppression. I spoke to the students involved in the production to find out more about the show.

- Isaac Tan 

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