Desmond Sim

Desmond Sim Kim Jin (born 1961) is a Singaporean playwright, poet, short story writer, screenwriter and painter. His work, Places Where I've Been, won a Merit Prize in the 1993 Singapore Literature Prize for Poetry.

Career Almost all of his 30 plays to date have been performed in professional theatres in Singapore, Malaysia and the United States. He was TheatreWorks' first playwright-in-residence and has been the associate artistic director of ACTION Theatre since April 2004, running Singapore Theatre Oasis, an incubator programme for new and existing Singaporean playwrights. He has participated in the Shanghai Literary Festival and was awarded a Fulbright fellowship. Desmond has also co-written two movies: Beautiful Boxer (2003) and The Wedding Game (2009). He is an acknowledged Peranakan painter who has held more than a dozen exhibitions on Peranakan figurative themes. Desmond also teaches playwriting, branding, marketing and communications at Temasek Polytechnic School of Design and Lasalle College of the Arts.

Selected plays 1992: Blood and Snow 1993: Sammy Won't Go to School 1993: Elizabeth by Night 1994: Drunken Prawns and Other Edible Delights 1994: A Singapore Carol 1995: Corporate Animals 1995: Teochew Porridge 1996: Who's Afraid of Chow Yuen Fatt? 1998: Drift 1999: Shrimps in Space 1999, 2000: The Swimming Instructor 2001: Autumn Tomyum 2002: MRT 2004: Hubbies4hire 2006: Fairy Godfather 2007: Postcards from Rosa 2009: Wife #11 2010: Perfecting Pratas

Publications Mistress and Other Creative Takeoffs (1990, Landmark Books, ) Co-author with Ovidia Yu and Kwuan Loh Places Where I've Been (1994, EPB Publishers, ) Poetry Student Plays (Epigram Books, 2013, ) Contents: Drunken Prawns, MRT, Perfecting Pratas, The Chair, Shrimps in Space, Teochew Porridge, The Durian Man and His Daughters Six Plays (Epigram Books, 2013, ) Contents: Autumn Tomyam, Elizabeth by Night, Fairy Godfather, Postcards from Rosa, Wife #11, The Swimming Instructor

Painting In the Peranakan-styled art that he is now best known for, Desmond is totally self-taught, although a strong influence from Modigliani, Rousseau, de Lempicka and Art Deco is prevalent.