She's in control... only when her drag king alter-ego takes over. Jo Tan delivers a tour de force performance playing multiple characters, multiple genders, and multiple genders playing other genders.
Coming fresh off the Edinburgh Fringe 2025, KING tells the story of Geok Yen, a public relations executive who seemingly has it all - a stable job and a boyfriend who is about to propose. But one fateful office party, her life gets upturned when she goes in the guise of a man, Stirling da Silva. Emboldened by the alter ego, Yen discovers a newfound confidence to take up space and speak her truth...but which personality will have to deal with the consequences?Jo’s experiences as a drag king sparked off an explosion of realisations about her own gender-identity – maybe she wasn’t a woefully inadequate Asian female, but just an individual with the right to navigate life her way. This inspired KING, where Jo singlehandedly plays multiple conflicting voices in the life of a socially-terrified woman: the unabashedly sexual and politically-incorrect King she dreams of being, her fabulous gay boss, her traditional chauvinist fiancé, his misogynistic drag queen friend, the mansplainer colleague... all accompanied by drag numbers of songs by beautiful K-Pop boys.Winner of the Straits Times Life Theatre Awards for Best Actress and Best Original Script in 2022, KING was first staged as a live-streamed digital production in 2020 by renowned Singapore arts company T:>Works, reaching over 3000 online viewers both in and beyond Singapore, and the live staging in August 2023 was sold-out and highly acclaimed. This newest edition is an updated 70-minute version created specially for KING's international tour.
