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SOO-JIN PARKDEBORAH ANPRIYA SINGHMANALI DATARSUNNY LEEMELISSA GANMARCEL BENOITSTEPHEN MADSENRUKI MINAMIKAORI MAEDA-JUDGEBUILT SUTTIKULNICOLE MILINKOVICXIAO CHENSHIRONG WUUNDERSTUDYJENNY WU

DIRECTOR PRISCILLA JACKMANDESIGNERJEREMY ALLENLIGHTING DESIGNERDAMIEN COOPERCOMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNERMICHAEL TOISUTACOMPOSER & ASSOCIATE SOUND DESIGNERME-LEE HAYPROJECTION DESIGNERANCHULI FELICIA KINGDRAMATURGCOURTNEY STEWARTVOICE & TEXT COACHLEITH MCPHERSON

PRODUCTION MANAGERELIZABETH JENKINSSTAGE MANAGERNATALIE MOIRASSISTANT STAGE MANAGEREMMA PATERSONCOSTUME COORDINATORSAM PERKINSCOSTUME MAINTENANCENYOK KIM CHANGLIGHTING SUPERVISORRAFF WATTLIGHTING OPERATORTRAVIS KECEKSOUND & VIDEO SUPERVISORLUKE DAVISSTAGING SUPERVISORCHRISTOPHER FLEMING STAGING TECHNICIANTYLER MASONREHEARSAL PHOTOGRAPHERPHILIP ERBACHER

1 HOUR 25 MINS, NO INTERVAL

THIS PRODUCTION FIRST OPENED IN OCTOBER 2019 AT THE RIVERSIDE

THEATRES, PARRAMATTA

WHITE PEARL WAS FIRST DEVELOPED THROUGH PLAYWRITING

AUSTRALIA THROUGH ITS NATIONAL NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT

PROGRAM AND THE NATIONAL PLAY FESTIVAL IN 2018.

SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY THANKS THE GIRGENSOHN FOUNDATION

FOR THEIR SUPPORT OF AUSTRALIAN WRITING.

THE WRITER AND THE PRODUCERS WISH TO MAKE CLEAR THAT THE EPONYMOUS PRODUCT WHITE PEARL AND THE COMPANY CLEARDAY™ ARE ENTIRELY FICTIONAL AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO EXISTING PRODUCTS OR COMPANIES IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

CO-PRODUCER

CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE PRESENTS A SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY ANDRIVERSIDE’S NATIONAL THEATRE OF PARRAMATTA PRODUCTION

White PearlBY ANCHULI FELICIA KING

CO-PRODUCERPRESENTER

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SYNOPSIS

It’s another day at the Singapore headquarters of Clearday Cosmetics, a highly successful start-up making waves in Asian cosmetic markets with their coveted ‘whitening cream’. Things have been going well, but today the team has a big problem to handle: Clearday’s new TV commercial has just been leaked online and is getting attention for all the wrong reasons.

It doesn’t take long for the video to go viral, kicking up debate within the team almost as vicious as the comments online. Who approved the video? Who leaked it? Is it as racist as everyone is saying? What

responsibility does the company have to its consumers? And most importantly, who deserves the blame for this catastrophe?

As the team at Clearday scrambles to contain the fallout, the open-plan, glass-door office proves to be a nest of secrets, lies and resentments. With a cultural mix that includes Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, Singaporean, Thai, English and American, the increasingly apparent divisions within the group reveal the complexity of pan-Asian relations and the toxicity of corporate culture.

3Kaori Maeda-Judge

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In 2016, ads for whitening products kept popping up on my newsfeed. These ads (variously Thai, Chinese, Korean) had gone viral online, having been deemed ‘racist’ by the global populace.

What struck me about this phenomenon is that I’d seen ads like this all the time, growing up in Thailand and the Philippines. Yet in the age of YouTube and #cancelculture, content could no longer exist in a national vacuum. It was suddenly accountable to a global discourse on race, being critiqued in a forum not particularly well suited to nuance.

So I wrote a play about it. There is no one ‘theme’ in White Pearl; it delves into many subjects: the cosmetics industry, racial

politics, beauty standards, startup culture, capitalism and the English language (to name just a few). The play is thematically overloaded because, at its core, this is a play about nuance. And the danger of its absence.

WRITER’S NOTE: ANCHULI FELICIA KING Melissa Gan, Kaori Maeda-Judge, Deborah An,

and Nicole Milinkovic

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE: PRISCILLA JACKMAN

A common observation we hear is that the Arts industry in this country does not allow for the maturing and deepening of new Australian work. All too often, we see new work painstakingly make its journey to the stage, and then it is gone, never to be seen or heard of again. New plays are rarely given

the opportunity to really grow into their own skin, to hold space and to participate in the conversations unfolding in the world which gave rise to their creation in the first place.

White Pearl is an exception.

It feels a long time ago that we opened our first production of White Pearl in 2019 at the Riverside Theatres, a co-production between Sydney Theatre Company and the National Theatre of Parramatta. Even longer since I first read Anchuli Felicia King’s astonishing first play, back in 2018, which had utterly swept me away with her unique voice, mastery of language and powerful provocations.

I had never read a play like it – the razor-sharp idiomatic specificity of the six striking and distinctive Asian female voices, the sophistication and slickness of Felicia’s spellbinding tempo, rhythms and the depth of her subversive comedy, which seemed to entice and decimate simultaneously.

Then came our 2021 season.

The optimism of our plans for a three-month tour of White Pearl across four states, ground to a halt with the resurgence of the

Stephen Madsen and Priscilla Jackman

“I had never read a play like it – the razor-sharp idiomatic specificity of the six striking and distinctive Asian female voices...”

6Shirong Wu and Priscilla Jackman

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Delta virus. But not without a remarkable season at Queensland Theatre and a nail-biting adventure across borders to Adelaide – where we were honoured to open the OzAsia Festival in October 2021. Rehearsals on Zoom, re-castings, and quarantining have become part of the tapestry of this extraordinary show’s history and we are so grateful to the unwavering support of our teams from Casting to Company Management, to Technical, Stage Management and Artistic Directors across the country, who have fought for White Pearl to flourish, against all odds.

The return of White Pearl, this time to Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf 1 in 2022 could not feel more thrilling or more congruent. A silver lining of the seasonal runs has proven White Pearl to be an astonishing vehicle for many actors, as our cast has inevitably undergone several changes since the first season three

years ago. We are so excited to introduce you to some new faces – and a few familiar – as our White Pearl family has continued to grow and thrive across all areas of the industry.

One of the counter points, in reflecting on the journey of this production, is that none of us, perhaps, could have predicted that the themes of Felicia’s fierce work – framed by the leaking of a racist cosmetics ad that goes viral – could actually become more relevant, more potent, more timely. Since opening we have seen the resurgence of the BLM movement, we have witnessed ongoing issues of systemic power and gender imbalance in our Australian parliament and bureaucracies. Of course the term ‘virus’ has taken on all new meaning, reaching well beyond the metaphorical or technological connotations of the word. As an audience, and company in 2022, we have a new perspective and very real lived experience of how ‘virus’ impacts our global community.

Set in the slick, ruthless landscape of Singaporean corporate culture, White Pearl interrogates the irrefutable complexities of PC culture, challenging the privileges of language and identity while offering profound provocations of our human inter-relationships. It invites us into a political conversation around power, perspective, racism, cultural currency, feminism and consumerism — ultimately asking us to question what unites us in our humanity and what tears us apart.

“We are so excited to introduce you to some new faces – and a few familiar...”

Assistant Stage Manager Emma Patterson

8Manali Datar and Priscilla Jackman

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Anchuli Felicia King is a playwright, screenwriter and multidisciplinary artist of Thai-Australian descent.

As a playwright, King is interested in linguistic hybrids, digital cultures and globalisation. Her plays have been produced by the Royal Court Theatre (London), Studio Theatre (Washington D.C.), American Shakespeare Center (Staunton), Melbourne Theatre Company (Melbourne), Sydney Theatre Company, Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta and Belvoir Theatre (Sydney). Her play Golden Shield will make its Off-Broadway debut at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2022.

King is currently a screenwriter on The Baby, a dark horror comedy produced by Sister Pictures for HBO/Sky and The Twelve, a trial drama for the Foxtel Group. She is writing on TV projects in development for HBO, AMC, Sister Pictures, BBC Studios, Warner Bros, Amazon, Netflix, Easy Tiger, Lucky Chap

Entertainment, Hoodlum Entertainment ,and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Awards, Commissions & Residencies:

Sydney Theatre Company Patrick White Fellowship, 2020; Mona Brand Emerging Writer Award, 2020; Royal Court Theatre Commission, 2019; Manhattan Theatre Club Commission, 2019; Melbourne Theatre Company Next Stage Commission, 2019; Ars Nova Play Group, 2018/19; Ensemble Studio Theatre Youngblood Member, 2017-2024 ; Roundabout Theater, Space Jam Program (ongoing); Space on Ryder Farm Finalist, 2018 ; Playwriting Australia National Play Initiative Winner, 2017 ; Yellow Earth Typhoon Reading Series, 2017; Liberation Video Commission, B.W. Powe Poetry Project, 2017; Roundabout Columbia Initiative Winner, 2017; Bridge Initiative Playwriting Award Finalist, 2016; Red Bull Theatre Short Play Finalist, 2016.

ANCHULI FELICIA KINGWriter/Projection Designer

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Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta), Still Point Turning: The Catherine McGregor Story. As Assistant Director: The Father, The Hanging. Other Theatre: Ensemble Theatre: The Appleton Ladies Potato Race, A Broadcast Coup, The Importance of Being Earnest (Boatshed reading). NIDA: Eurydike + Orpheus, Ghosts. Opera Australia: The Barber of Seville (National Tour). WAAPA: An Ideal Husband. Bell Shakespeare: The Revengers Tragedy (Play In A Day). As Associate Director: Opera Australia: Bluebeard’s Castle. As Revival Director: The Magic Flute (Schools tour). As Assistant Director: Opera Australia: Ernani. Ensemble Theatre: Barefoot in the Park, Good People. As Dramaturg: Ensemble Theatre: The Appleton Ladies Potato Race, A Broadcast Coup. Awards: 2019 Sydney Theatre Awards, Best Ensemble, White Pearl, Sydney Theatre Company, 2016 Sandra Bates Directing Award, Ensemble Theatre. 2017 Berlin Opera Award from The Foundation for Young Australians. Training:

Masters of Fine Arts, Directing NIDA 2016.

PRISCILLA JACKMANDirector

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Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s The National Theatre of Parramatta). Other Theatre: Sport For Jove: The Crucible, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth. Bell Shakespeare: Shakespeare is Dead, Macbeth: The Rehearsal (The Players). Belvoir: Slut: The Play. Film: The Legend of the Five. TV: includes Home and Away, Harrow. Web Series: A Shared House. Other: White Pearl Reading with Playwriting Australia/National Play Festival.

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Michael Cassel Group: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two. Melbourne Theatre Company: Vivid White. Arts Centre Melbourne: Morning Melodies. As Assistant Director: Hayes Theatre: Merrily We Roll Along. Recordings: Ultrafine: Signs. Training: VCA.

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: Dick Lee/Singapore Street Festival: Beauty World. Singapore Lyric Opera: Turandot. Dream Academy: Detention Katong. L’arietta Productions: The Four Note Opera, Gordon Crosse: Purgatory. And So Forth: The Imaginarium of Disco David, If We Dream Too Long. Smile Live Entertainment: Barney’s Greatest Hits (Asia Tour), Angelina Ballerina’s Dance Concert. Training: Lasalle College of the Arts.

Sydney Theatre Company: Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical (with Global Creatures). Other Theatre: Hayes Theatre: Heathers: The Musical, Rent, The View UpStairs. Darlinghurst Theatre Company: Torch Song Trilogy. Sport for Jove: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV: Ms Fischer’s Modern Murder Mysteries, Secret Bridesmaid’s Business. Awards: TDP/ASCAP Bound for Broadway Scholarship. Training: WAAPA.

Sydney Theatre Company: Debut. Other Theatre: The Production Company: Lazarus. Music Theatre Melbourne: PARIS - A Rock Odyssey. Other: Soloist in John Buccino retrospective concert. TV: Neighbours, Orange is the New Brown, La Brea. Training: Film and Television Institute, VCA.

Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta). Other Theatre: The Phoenix Theatre: Salome. Short Film: Blood and Steel, Slice of Life, Match Point, Death Proof. Training: Screenwise.

Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National

DEBORAH ANSoo-Jin Park

MANALI DATAR Priya Singh

MELISSA GANSunny Lee

STEPHEN MADSENMarcel Benoit

KAORI MAEDA-JUDGERuki Minami

NICOLE MILINKOVICBuilt Suttikul

SHIRONG WUXiao Chen

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Theatre of Parramatta). Other Theatre: Belvoir: Miss Peony, Cursed!. Javaad Alipoor Th Co: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Between the Buildings Th Co: What Every Girl Should Know. Hartwell Players: I, Cockroach. Dirty Pennies Theatre Project: Flagman. MUSC: Athens Reborn. Film: Pencil to the Jugular, What We’re Owed, Mothertongue, You Can’t Make This Movie, A Little Resistance. TV: Neighbours. Awards: 2019 Sydney Theatre Awards Best Ensemble (White Pearl). 2018 Best Supporting Actress for Monash One Act Play Festival (I, Cockroach). Training: 16th Street Actors Studio.

Sydney Theatre Company: Going Down, Chimerica. Other Theatre: Malthouse Theatre: Going Down. Siren Theatre Company: The Ham Funeral. Film: Swipe Right, Australia Day, Lady Bloodfight, The Promise I Made To You, Drum Wave, Inside. TV: Crossroads, Deadhouse Dark, Top of the Lake: China Girl, Chosen, Secret City, Deep Breathing in Australia. Training: NIDA.

Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National

Theatre of Parramatta). As Design Realiser: Triple X. Other Theatre: Griffin Theatre Company: Orange Thrower. Sydney Philharmonia Ensemble: Considering Matthew Shepard. Hayes Theatre: The Rise & Disguise of Elizabeth R. Darlinghurst Theatre Company: Small Mouth Sounds, Savages. Outhouse Theatre Company: John, Gloria. As Set Designer: Hayes Theatre: Merrily We Roll Along. King’s Cross Theatre: If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How I Love You, Ironbound. Apocalypse Theatre Company: Angels in America, Cleansed . New Theatre: Stupid F**king Bird. Opera: Pinchgut Opera: The Loves of Apollo and Dafne.

Sydney Theatre Company: Top

Girls, Dinner, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Disgraced, Arcadia, Orlando, The Golden Age, Suddenly Last Summer, The Women of Troy, The Lost Echo, Riflemind, Tot Mom, King Lear, The Shape of Things, These People, Morph, Thyestes, Far Away, Bed, This Little Piggy, Julius Caesar, Summer Rain, Boy Gets Girl, The Metamorphosis, The Cherry Orchard, A Hard God, Fat Pig, Ying Tong - A Walk With the Goons, Self Esteem, The Art of War, The Great, The Duel (with ThinIce), Honour, Oresteia, Zebra!, Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness (with La Boite), Blood Wedding, Bloodland (with Queensland Theatre, Adelaide Festival and Bangarra), Pygmalion, Under Milk Wood, The Splinter, Storm Boy (with Barking Gecko), The Long Way Home, Children of the Sun, Cyrano de Bergerac, Arms and the Man. Other Theatre: Belvoir: Things I Know To Be True, Counting and Cracking, Mark Colvin’s Kidney, The

Dog/The Cat, Radiance, The Glass Menagerie, Coranderrk, Miss Julie, Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Peter Pan, Private Lives, Conversation Piece, Strange Interlude, Neighbourhood Watch, The Seagull, Gethsemane, Keating!, Toy Symphony, Peribanez, Stuff Happens, The Chairs, The Spook, In Our Name, The Underpants, The Sugar House, A Taste of Honey, The Ham Funeral, Exit the King (with Malthouse Theatre, and Broadway transfer). Queensland Theatre: Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (with Belvoir), Away. Bell Shakespeare: The Tempest. MTC: Golden Shield. Ensemble Theatre: Kenny, Honour. Other: Designed lighting for other forms of performance art, including over 150 opera, ballet and dance productions. Awards: Three Sydney Theatre Awards – Best Lighting; Three Green Room Awards – Best Lighting; Two Australian Production Designers Guild Awards – Award for Best Lighting Design Der Ring des Nibelungen; Award for Best Lighting Design The Glass Menagerie.

Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta). As Sound Designer: Australian Graffiti. As Associate Sound Designer: Disgraced. Other Theatre: CAAP: Perahu-Perahu. Belvoir: The Sugar House, Windmill Baby. Bell Shakespeare: Richard 3. National Theatre of Parramatta: Flight Paths. Griffin & State Theatre Company of South Australia: Masquerade. Legs On The Wall: Man with the Iron Neck, My Bicycle Loves You. TerryandTheCuz: Made in America. Mosman Art Gallery: Island of Shadows. PYT Fairfield: Swimming

JEREMY ALLENDesigner

DAMIEN COOPERLighting Designer

MICHAEL TOISUTAComposer & Sound Designer

JENNY WUUnderstudy

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Pool. DeQuincey Co: Framed. Short Film: Dance Diaries: Woodville, Dance Diaries: Sydney, Hairpin, Jyoti, Woodlands. Video Art Installation: Asia Pacific Triennial 2018: Habitat 2018, Art Gallery of NSW: Habitat 2017, Cairns Art Gallery: Dengung Hyena. Cross-Artform: Bundanon Trust Siteworks: Double Landscape.

Sydney Theatre Company: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta). Other Theatre: As Composer and Live Musician: National Theatre of Parramatta: Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (Sydney Festival 2022). The Joan, Penrith: Yellow Yellow Sometimes Blue. As Composer and Sound Designer: National Theatre of Parramatta: Launch Pad. Sydney Dance Company PPY: PPY 21 Elastic Stasis Dance by Cass Mortimer Eipper, PPY19 Revealed Orfeo and Eurydice by Idan Cohen. Film: A Second Chance: Rivals, Museums Victoria Scienceworks Planetarium Documentaries Capturing the Cosmos and Starlight. TV: Luke Nguyen’s Greater Mekong 2, Ben’s Men. Positions: Vice President of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers. Awards: APRA Best Music in a Short Film 2017 and IOWA Best Score 2018 (Last Tree Standing), Runners Up Best Music in Fiske FullDome Festival 2015 (Starlight). Other: Album release for soundtrack to the independent motion picture biopic Heretic, TVC Infohealth (Vicks, Panadol), World premiere of orchestral works performed by AWO at Adelaide Fringe Festival 2019. Training: AFTRS, AMusA Piano, CMus Cello.

Sydney Theatre Company: Julius Caesar, Playing Beatie Bow. As Dramaturg and Assistant Director: White Pearl (with Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta). As Assistant Director: Australian Graffiti. Other Theatre: As Director: NIDA: Eat Me. Belvoir: Miss Peony. Sydney Fringe: Confessions of a Custard Melon Pan. As Assistant Director: CAAP: Double Delicious. Director for works in development: Miss Peony, Top Coat, The Zap, Orange Thrower, The Grocer and Barbaric Truth, No Pink Dicks, White Pearl. Positions: Sydney Theatre Company: Richard Wherrett Fellow, Delegate to the National Performer’s Committee, former-Chair of the Equity Diversity Committee, Board member of Contemporary Asian Australian Performance. Training: QUT.

Sydney Theatre Company: Grand Horizons, Triple X (with QT), Death of a Salesman, Julius Caesar. Other Theatre: As Dialect Coach: MTC: Kiss of the Spider Woman, Shakespeare in Love, The Lady in the Van, Twelfth Night, Astroman, A Doll’s House: Part 2, An Ideal Husband, Macbeth, Melbourne Talam, Born Yesterday, Jasper

Jones, Skylight, The Weir, Double Indemnity, Peddling, North by Northwest, Jumpy, I’ll Eat You Last, Private Lives, Other Desert Cities, All About My Mother, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Boston Marriage, Madagascar, The Swimming Club, The Drowsy Chaperone, August: Osage County, Rockabye, Songs for Nobodies, The Dame on the Ten Dollar Note. Freidman, Callender, Cassel: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Original Australian Company). National Theatre (London): The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Melbourne). Royal Shakespeare Company: Matilda the Musical (Melbourne). Coppel, Withers & Bewick: Mamma Mia the Musical (Australian Tour). Global Creatures: Muriel’s Wedding: the Musical (Melbourne). Luckiest Enterprises: Little Shop of Horrors. TML Enterprises: Fiddler on the Roof. Gordon Frost Productions: Anything Goes, Once the Musical (Australia). As Associate Director: Queensland Theatre and MTC: Noises Off. As Voice Coach and Assistant Director: MTC: Richard III, Hamlet. Film: As Dialect Coach includes: Ghost in the Shell, Gods of Egypt, The Hobbit (Trilogy), Zulu, The Lovers. As Language Creator: Mortal Engines.

COURTNEY STEWARTDramaturg

ME-LEE HAYComposer & Associate Sound Designer

LEITH MCPHERSONVoice & Text Coach

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One of the world’s largest not-for-profit theatre producers, Sydney Theatre Company is at the heart of Australia’s cultural landscape. It owes its world class creative pedigree to a history of ground-breaking productions.

Since 1978, the Company has produced work that is – in the words of founding Artistic director Richard Wherrett – “grand, vulgar, intelligent, challenging, and fun”. A paradox as playful as our city.

We are proud that over the years Sydney Theatre Company has produced work with some of Australia’s

– and the world’s – most exciting performers, writers, directors and creative teams; and that we continue to invest in the artistic legends of the future.

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Board of DirectorsIan Narev (Chair)Ann Johnson (Deputy Chair)Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM

David CraigHeather Mitchell AM

Gretel Packer AM

Mark Scott AO

Annette Shun WahMichael TriguboffKip Williams

Artistic Director and Co-CEOKip Williams

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