Our Team

Oliver Chong

Artistic Director / Core Team Member

Oliver Chong is a multi-award-winning and published playwright, director, actor, and designer. Some of his memorable works include Every Brilliant Thing, A Fiend’s Diary, Roots, I’m Just A Piano Teacher, Cat, Lost & Found, The Book of Living and Dying, Citizen Pig and Citizen Dog. His numerous nominations at The Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards include Production of the Year and Best Director for I’m Just A Piano Teacher, Production of the Year for Off Centre, Best Director and Best Script for Citizen Pig, Best Director and Best Actor for Every Brilliant Thing, Best Actor for Roots, Invisibility/Breathing and Art, Best Supporting Actor for Itsy, the musical, Flare, Best Ensemble for Senang, Shit Hole, First Family, Rashomon, and A Cage Goes in Search of a Bird respectively, and Best Set Design for Twisted, Citizen Dog and A Fiend’s Diary.

In 2011, he won Production of the Year for A Cage Goes in Search of a Bird with A Group of People. In 2013, he won Production of the Year and Best Script for Roots. The production has since toured Hong Kong and Taiwan to critical acclaim. Roots was also read and staged in New Zealand by Proudly Asian Theatre. In 2016, he was invited to perform in a site-specific, 108-hour durational one-man show Time Between Us at the Singapore International Festival of Arts. In 2017, he was selected to perform in the international premiere of Blood and Rose Ensemble in Taipei, directed by Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group’s Director Wang Chia Ming, a co-commission by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay and Taiwan National Performing Arts Centre Innovation Series Theater Festival. In 2020, he won Best Actor for A Fiend’s Diary.

To date, Oliver has performed at international arts festivals with touring productions in Paris, Myanmar, Barcelona, Budapest, Ankara, Bangkok, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. He has conducted playwriting, directing and acting Masterclasses in Hong Kong and Singapore, and has been committed to helping practitioners fine-tune their crafts since 2014.

Oliver was the Resident Director of THE FINGER PLAYERS (2004 – 2018), currently the Artistic Director of the company. He is also the founding member of A GROUP OF PEOPLE (2008 – 2012) and the founder of ODDCROP Productions (2019 – present). His published works include Roots, The Book of Living and Dying, I’m Just A Piano Teacher and Cat, Lost & Found.

Ellison Tan Yuyang

Core Team Member

Ellison is a Singaporean-Chinese performer, playwright and educator. She is the Co-Artistic Director and Core Team Member of The Finger Players. She is also a Co-Founder of The Wanderlings – the first Singaporean collective to create baby theatre.

Ellison’s background is in puppetry, playwriting, the Suzuki Method of Actor Training and Viewpoints. She was conferred the National Arts Council Arts Scholarship in 2020 to pursue a Masters in Theatre for Young Audience.

Myra Loke

Core Team Member

Myra Loke is a puppeteer, actor, educator, designer and theatre-maker. She started her journey in Singapore’s theatre 13 years ago when she co-created and participated in ARTivate (Pioneer Batch), a youth wing of Drama Box Ltd.

Now, Myra is the Co-Artistic Director and a member of the core team of The Finger Players. She has since directed and led productions such as Little Mournings (as part of The Maker’s Project 2020) and Peepbird.

Myra continues to contribute as a performer and puppet designer and maker. She has performed, designed and made puppets for productions such as OIWA – The Ghost of Yotsuya (Singapore International Festival of Arts 2021),  Framed, By Adolf, The Spirits Play, ITSY- The Musical, The Flying Dutchman, Turn by Turn We Turn and several others. 

In 2017, Myra co-created “You Can Reach The Sky”, Singapore’s first immersive theatrical experience for babies. In 2018, Myra co-founded an arts collective, The Wanderlings, where she continues her work in engaging young people and people with special needs. 

Chong Tze Chien

Core Team Member

Tze Chien is a core member of The Finger Players and an award winning playwright/director. For his contributions to Singapore Theatre, he was awarded the Young Artist Award by Singapore’s National Arts Council in 2006.

On the national level, Tze Chien was the Creative Director of Singapore Pools’ float and performance in Chingay 2007 and 2008, Co-conceptualist and Writer for NDP 2016, Creative Director of Island Adventures for National Museum of Singapore’s Children’s Season 2012, Artistic Director of The Arts House’s 10th Anniversary in 2014, and the Co-curator of The Studios: Fifty, a festival of 50 iconic Singapore Plays presented by the Esplanade in 2015.

As an arts educator, Tze Chien has been conducting workshops and masterclasses for tertiary institutions and schools in Singapore since 2001. He has taught in NUS, Lasalle College of the Arts and NTU/NIE to name a few. He was a Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Arts Presentation (Drama) Adjudicator for five years, and the Creative Director of SYF Concert 2019. He currently sits on the Curriculum Development Assessment Committee in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.

Daniel Sim

Core Team Member

Daniel is interested in objects in performance and the potential of their material and theatrical presence. He has designed, coordinated and/or made puppets, props and gadgets for shows such as The Zodia Race (2023), End of the Rainbow (2022), Jun and The Octopus (2022), Oiwa – The Ghost of Yotsuya (2021), The Son (2020), Urinetown The Musical (2019), The Great Wall: One Woman’s Journey (2017), and ITSY – The Musical (2017). He also builds and has helped to create spaces for shows like Love is the Last Thing On My Mind (2020), Flowers (2019), Both Sides, Now: Closer (2018), and MISSING (2018). 

Daniel is a member of The Finger Players Core Team. He helms The Maker’s Lab, a programme that focuses on research and development of puppet design and making. 

Daniel is a co-founder of Prop-erly, where he fabricates puppets, props and other performance objects. He is also a co-founder of local Facebook group, We.Make.Performance.Objects.

Lam Dan Fong

Core Team Member

Dan Fong recently co-founded The Props Collective and The Backstage Affair with like-minded individuals as she believes in the power and impact of art and is invested in finding solutions to making art more socially and economically sustainable. 

She was part of the pioneer batch of ARTivate, the youth wing of Drama Box Ltd and has extensive experience in production management with many local theatre companies. Her education in Accountancy has definitely given her an edge in her career. She is a member of The Finger Players Core Team.

Ong Kian Sin

Core Team Member / Co-Founder

Kian Sin is co-founder of The Finger Players. He often designs and constructs puppets. His puppet creations were seen in Furthest North, Deepest South, First Family, Wong Kar Wai Dreams, Twisted, Flare and suitCASES. In 2007, he staged 0501, a site-specific production that won two technical awards (Set and Sound Design) at the 8th Straits Times Life! Theatre Awards, as well as a President’s Design Award. His subsequent directorial works include Let Dreams Fly, Twisted, Whispers (Huayi Festival) and The Musical Canvas (Ding Yi/Esplanade FYI). Some performing credits include: The Book of Living and Dying, Turn by Turn We Turn, Senang (Drama Box) and One Metre Square: Voices from Sungei Road (Wild Rice).

Sindhura Kalidas

Core Team Member

Sindhura Kalidas is a theatre maker and educator. Over the years, she has diversified her largely performance-based portfolio to include writing, facilitating, directing, and dramaturgy through her training and work with companies such as Teater Ekamatra, The Necessary Stage (TNS), and The Finger Players (TFP). Sindhu was the first recipient of the TFP Fellowship, a year-long leadership development programme for mid-career practitioners to deepen their understanding of puppetry.

In 2021, Sindhu was awarded the NAC Postgraduate Arts Scholarship. She holds an MA (Distinction) in Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London. Sindhu is developing a dramaturgical practice focused on care and empathy, specifically when working with traditionally underrepresented and misrepresented communities.

Tan Xiang Yi

Core Team Member

Xiang Yi’s background in stage management for the past decade has led her to work with different theatre companies, artists, creatives and production team. She was the Associate Stage Manager with Nine Years Theatre between 2018 – 2020. 

Currently, she is a full time Project Manager and a member of The Finger Players Core Team.

Loo An Ni

Core Team Member

Loo An Ni is fascinated with the tactility of objects and spaces. This brought her into theatre where possibilities are endless. Having taken on various roles behind the scenes from design and construction of costumes and puppets to wardrobe management, her current interest is exploring how these two fields can meld with or complement each other.

Recent works include Peepbird (Puppets; The Finger Players), nominated for Best Costume (Max Tan) with Puppet Design and Build in The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards 2022, First Fleet (Costume; Nine Years Theatre and Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre), awarded Best Production and Best costume in 2020, and Windward Side of the Mountain (Costume; SAtheCollective, Nine Years Theatre and T.H.E Dance Company).