Written By Kelly Silver
three double show days in KL, we seemed to go straight into Singapore. Just a couple of days break to travel and for the crew to load in to the new venue. There would be two eight show weeks in Singapore, followed by a week off.
Olivia would be performing for the Press event ‘I Know It’s Today’. She hadn’t performed for press since Istanbul, so she was really excited. I was nervous. We’re six months into this tour and I still get nervous when I watch her. Of course, it went perfectly.
Base Asia were the presenters of both KL and Singapore. They arranged an opening night party in Singapore at a local restaurant in the Marina Bay Sands. It felt good to get dressed up and go out in such a beautiful location.
Our hotel was situated about a 15 minute drive from the theatre. Singapore has a very good subway, so instead of the usual bus to the theatre, we were each given metro cards to take the MRT daily. The subway was a ten minute walk from the hotel. We would then take two trains. It was very clean and punctual. It’s great way to get around town and can pretty much take you everywhere.
The hotel was nice, but the room was so tiny, you could barely walk around the beds, so getting to clothes each day was difficult. It was the first time I really felt like we were living out of a suitcase. The last two cities had spoilt us for space.
There seemed to be mall after mall after mall. All busy with a lot of high end stores which I wouldn’t be spending any money in. My favorite part of these malls were the food courts. Nothing like the food courts in the US. They have really good restaurants. Most of the meals we had for the entire three weeks were in the food courts. We had Teppanyaki, Indian, sizzling pepper steak and Japanese Bento Boxes to name a few. All reasonably priced. Restaurants outside the malls were priced pretty much the same as the higher end NYC restaurants.
Clare’s family were joining the tour for the three weeks in Singapore. Olivia and Eliana were so excited. Clare and Bart have three boys, Spencer 8, Simon 4 and Safford,16 months. So far there haven’t been any kids on the tour and now they had pool buddies. They spent most days which had only evening performances with the boys at the pool.
At the theatre, Spencer, Peter Pan, had volunteered to be a guest teacher, teaching Science. He taught twice on double show days. Tackling heat and electricity. This was way more interesting than the version I would’ve taught. I think Olivia found it very refreshing and he had put a lot of thought into how he would teach. He even brought props.
The presenters had given a list of things to do. One of them was the cable car ride to Sentosa. We had planned to spend our first Monday off at Universal Studios on Sentosa. There were a few ways to get to there, but we chose to kill two birds with one stone. It was a beautiful view, a little expensive though. No surprise since most things are expensive in Singapore. Olivia had made two friends through Instagram who were in the Australian touring production of Les Miserable. Seb, who plays Gavroche and Chloe, who plays Little Cosette. We would be joining them. We had met Chloe and her mom, Alys, the prior evening when they came to see Shrek, but we had yet to meet Seb and his mom Lechia. We all hit it off really well, the kids had such a fun day. Lechia and Seb had to leave early as their family were flying in, but Chloe, Olivia and Eliana continued on the Puss in Boots ride, a total of thirteen times!
Eight shows later, we closed Singapore and could spend the next week seeing what this city had to offer.
To start our week off we were meeting up with Alys and Chloe. We booked a Duck tour, which is a cross between boat and bus, going on both land and water. We cruised along the Singapore River and back to the Singapore Flyer, The second part of the tour was to ride the flyer. It’s a huge ferris wheel, like the London Eye. We had beautiful weather and a magnificent view over Singapore. The girls just loved spending time with each other. It was lovely to watch them enjoying themselves.
Tuesday evening we watched Les Miserable. We had booked tickets to see Seb play Gavroche. Unfortunately, Chloe was not playing Cosette on the same night. I really wasn’t sure what the girls would think of the show. It’s really long, and as in it’s name, quite miserable, but Olivia had been speaking with Seb on IG for a few months and she really wanted to see him.
Seb was a great Gavroche. I think it’s one of the best roles for a young boy in theatre. The girls lost the story quite a few times, but by far my favorite comments were after the Lovely Ladies scene. Olivia said “who are these people”? to which Eliana replied “they’re the fairytale characters”.
Wednesday night we went to the Night Safari.We had been told by quite a few people that it was the best thing to see in Singapore. It didn’t disappoint. You can walk, take a tram, or as we did, a mix of both. We saw bats, flying squirrels, badgers, hippos, warthogs, elephants, leopards and much more. The only downside to the night safari was that it’s too dark to get any good photos. The photos will have to live in our memories, which should last about a week with mine.
The next day we were going back, but this time to the daytime zoo. It was our first trip out with Clare, Bart and the boys. Also joining us for the day were Jack, Will and Marissa. We started the day at breakfast with the Orangutans. The zoo was the best I’ve been to. We spent the entire day there and without complaint from the five kids we had in tow.
Our last night in Singapore was spent on a river cruise with Lechia, Seb, Layla, Alyse and Chloe. The girls were sad to say goodbye. They had enjoyed their time together so much and I loved having some other moms to hang out with.
With the end of Singapore came a much sadder end for us. Clare was leaving as Company Manager. We had become so close. Clare had been part of so many of our adventures. She was our tour family and her family had also become part of ours. The only consolation was that there were only a few weeks left of the tour and we’ll be sure to see her when we’re home.