In his latest production, Kapitan – The Musical, veteran playwright and director Chin San Sooi revisits the life of Yap Ah Loy – a young Hakka migrant from Guangdong, China who arrived in Malaya in the mid-19th century, seeking opportunity, and eventually rose to become the third Kapitan Cina of Kuala Lumpur.
At 85, Chin shows no signs of slowing down, also writing the lyrics for this upcoming production. Since the post-pandemic period, he staged Solace Of Papan (an opera about nurse and wartime heroine Sybil Kathigasu) last year and presented Water: A Musical, an environmental-themed theatre production in 2022.
