Faces Behind Avant

 

Mr G Selvananthan (Selva) Founder & Artistic Director

Selva is one of the accomplished theatre directors of Singapore. Till to date he has written, directed and acted in more than 50 plays in English and Tamil including overseas productions. Selva started off as an actor in the 1980s and soon progressed to writing and directing his own plays. He has acted and directed numerous Tamil and English theatre productions for Ravindran Drama Group in Singapore and several more in Melbourne Australia under the banner of Avant Theatre & Language, a Melbourne based Drama Company. Selva graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Class-Honours) majoring in Media Arts and Drama from Deakin University, Melbourne with the support from National Arts Council, Singapore in 2005. The honourable title of ‘Kalai Chemmal’, was bestowed on Selva by Singapore Indian Artiste Association (SIAA) on 25 September 2010. Selva is not a new comer to stage or to the film industry as he was awarded the Most Popular Celebrity award by Singapore’s Media Corp Television’s Vasantham Central in April 2001. His accolades include receiving the Distinguished Artist Award from the President of Singapore, His Excellency S R Nathan in 2000. He was also nominated for Best Actor Award at the 1997 ‘Pesta Pradhana’ award ceremony by Singapore Television 12 Network for acting in the first ever-Tamil sitcom in Singapore “Amali Thumali". Selva has a list of Programmes he has worked on the local Television and recently he was featured in Malaysian Television RTM in the programme Vannamayilgal, as notable artiste from Singapore. The documentary highlighted Selva’s Theatre and Dance ventures over the years. Currently Selva is a recognised Drama and Theatre Studies teacher with an International School and yet makes time to pursue his artistic interest with passion and dedication.Read more about Selva's [performance details and Analysis of his works. Click Here

Mr Puravalan, Director - Business Development & Partnerships

Puravalan started his stage acting in 1999, prior to this he participated in much oratorical and singing presentation. Puravalan is a versatile artiste and who will be able to adapt to any role in a short span of time. He is able to portray different shades in acting in the various roles he takes up. He is also a known face in the Tamil media circle who is acclaimed for his many pulsating roles in Mediacorp’s Vasantham programmes. He was awarded the “Most Popular Artiste”, award in 2010 Pradhana Vizha. On stage his roles in Apsaras Arts Sivagami, Thondan in Miror Theatre’s Thondan and Ravindran Drama Group’s Macbeth and Taj Mahal are highly spoke about roles. Puravalan is a very serious and hardworking actor who takes pride and diligence in his craft.

Ms Devi - Honarary Secretary

Currently an undergraduate at National Institute of Education pursuing her passion for teaching, Devi has been in the Tamil theatre scene since she was 15. Her debut performance was RDG’s “Kuraloviyam” in 2004. She subsequently did “Nil,Gavani,Sel” in 2006. Her performance in RDG’s “Sathai” in 2008 received raving reviews among critics and had set herself a name as an upcoming actress. Devi had also acted in RDG’s “Vetti”-a comedy in 2009 and TripleV theatre’s “Bomoh”- a dark play in 2010, both of which allowed her to venture out in the different genres of theatre. With her new venture in “Romz and Julz” with Avant theatre, Devi hopes to learn a lot from her director, fellow cast, crew and wishes this play would establish her as a professional actress among theatre practicians.

Mr. Elavazhagan Murugan - Resident Playwright

Mr. Elavazhagan Murugan is a Research Scientist in SGH. This science scholar has constantly been in touch with Tamil theatre and literature. In Singapore, his stage journey started with Sangae Muzhangu 2003, as a script-writer and actor. He scripted and directed Sangae Muzhangu 2005. He translated Shakespeare’s ‘Titus Andronicus’ in Tamil and it was released as a book commissioned by Miror Theatre. It was adapted and staged as a play, Thondan, in 2007. He has scripted and directed the retrospective inspection on the heroes of Mahabharata, the five Pandavas and their wife Draupadi in the English play, Pandavas that was staged in Drama centre Black Box, NLB in 2008. He has scripted the play Taj Mahal that was staged in 2008 and restaged with more modifications in 2010. He has written and directed the theatre-dance bilingual production, “Rivers” that creates awareness on environmental issues. He is a regular contributor to Singapore’s first Tamil e-magazine, Thangameen. Currently he is writing “Arivoma Ariviyalai”, a series on interesting discoveries and truths in Science in the magazine.He has also written songs and poems for dance productions such as Prathiksha (2008, Raffles) by Bharataanjali, Thillana Moganambal (2009, Raffles) by World-in-Theatre, Apurva (2009, Esplanade) and Aalam (2009 and 2010, Kala Utsavam, Esplanade; 2010, India) by Apsaras Arts.Mahabharata has been a subject of great interest to the playwright as was evident with his play, Pandavas. He has also scripted an experimental theatre-dance ensemble on Shakuni, the prominent negative character in Mahabharata in the play Red or Rannam soon to occupy stage. Bhishma, one of the most important characters of Mahabharata provides enormous scope for psychological analysis of the character coupled with the recorded incidents, interaction with other characters and many more intriguing aspects of characterization and scripting. The playwright was extremely interested in this topic and has been carrying out intensive research from authentic records on the characters.