Young People’s Performing Arts Ensemble

Founded in 1973, the Young People’s Performing Arts Ensemble (YPPAE) is a Mandarin performing arts company for youths and children. Its mission is to inspire creativity and independent thinking among the young by researching and promoting Mandarin creative drama education and performing arts for children. Over the years, YPPAE members have performed on local stages in Mandarin, drawing tens of thousands of young people in Singapore to enjoy Mandarin drama, musicals, and crosstalk shows, immersing themselves in Chinese language and culture.

Early years

The YPPAE was originally established in 1973 as a research unit under Radio Singapore to produce radio programmes for young listeners. In 1992, following the restructuring of Radio Singapore, Ma Gyap Sen, a music instructor with the unit, led its members in moving to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). The unit became affiliated with NAFA and was renamed the Young People’s Performing Arts Ensemble. Since then, the YPPAE has shifted its focus from radio recordings to the performing arts, and offers training programmes in creative drama for youths, standard Mandarin, and children’s choir. Since 1993, it has also staged the annual public performance series, Voices of Children.

In 1999, the YPPAE left NAFA and gradually evolved into an independent, non-profit performing arts organisation. That same year, it produced Singapore’s first Mandarin children’s musical accompanied by Chinese orchestral music, A Gift to the Young Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, directed by opera director Chen Wei from China, with the script and music by Ma Gyap Sen.

Local crosstalk shows

The YPPAE has also played a leading role in developing the art of youth crosstalk in Singapore. Since 2000, it has staged a series of crosstalk shows, including notable works such as The Crosstalk Master Seeks Disciples (2000), Crosstalk Master , Where Are You? (2003), We Are Here, Crosstalk Master! (2005), Excuse Me, Are You a Crosstalk Master (2013), and A Teahouse of Crosstalk (2014).

Originally starting out with children’s crosstalk, the YPPAE has since nurtured more than 40 skillful crosstalk performers. Among them, Low Zhibin, Nam Yunzhou, Kow Xiao Jun, Timothy Long, Hazel Tan, Choo Ming Jing, and Chen Weijie have also contributed to crosstalk scriptwriting, blending traditional Chinese oral performing arts with contemporary creative elements, such as incorporating music and dance in crosstalk plays Battle of the Musical Notes and I Don’t Know. Drawing inspiration from everyday life in Singapore, these young crosstalk artistes have produced over 50 original works, including Fast Forward (2013), Singapore-Lah (2015), Neng Yan Shan Dao (2020), Talking Filial (2017), You Ku Nan Yan (2019), Nonsense (2018), Chou Pi Wen Hua (2017), music crosstalk Entrance and Exit Music (2014), and dance crosstalk I Don’t Know (2019).

In 2008, the YPPAE created Roaring Good Times, a uniquely Singaporean crosstalk brand aimed at developing crosstalk performances with a distinct local flavour. From 2017 to 2019, it launched a local “teahouse” crosstalk series titled A Teahouse of Cross Talks (2017), which allowed audiences to learn about tea culture while enjoying crosstalk performances up close. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the YPPAE turned to social media to present their performances.

In 2025, YPPAE produced Singapore’s first kuaiban (a performance that uses bamboo clappers to create rhythm) play, Tok Tik Tok – Singapore River Rhapsody. Written and directed by Ma Gyap Sen, and scripted by Huang Mincong, the performance featured original kuaiban segments with a distinct Singaporean flavour, including Wanton Mee, Bak Kut Teh, Pek Sin Choon Nanyang Tea, and Singapore River, the Mother River.

International collaborations

In 2008, the YPPAE hosted a master class series and presented a children’s choral concert titled Voices of the Rainbow at the Esplanade Concert Hall, featuring 450 children and nine local conductors guided by renowned Chinese conductor Yang Hongnian (1934–2020). From 2013 to 2017, the YPPAE hosted crosstalk master classes by Geng Diansheng, followed by an online crosstalk lecture by Ye Yiyun in 2022.

In addition, YPPAE has been invited to the Tianjin International Children’s Culture and Art Festival in China on numerous occasions, where it showcased Singapore’s brand of crosstalk and children’s choir performances in the hometown of traditional Chinese vocal performing arts. The YPPAE’s original crosstalk productions, Battle of the Musical Notes (2017) and Qun Gu Xiang Sheng (2018), transcended language barriers and allowed young audiences from around the world to appreciate Singapore’s unique crosstalk style.

In 2019, under the leadership of drama instructor Tang Chia-Yu, the YPPAE collaborated with youths from China and the United States to present the stage play Mr Magnolia, which won the Best Production for the Young award at The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards that year.

Other notable productions by the YPPAE in recent years include Drunken Prawn (2016) and The Best Gift (2018), which were translated from the works of local English playwright Desmond Sim, as well as Kuo Pao Kun’s (1939–2002) The Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree (2019). In 2023, the YPPAE published So Singapore, a collection of youth crosstalk compositions by resident playwright Victor Tan. In 2022, the YPPAE was conferred the Singapore Chinese Cultural Contribution Award (Organisational) by the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre.

Today, YPPAE practises Tang Chia-Yu’s creative drama pedagogy, which combines Confucian philosophy and Western theories to develop original productions. Beyond nurturing young performers proficient in Mandarin, the YPPAE also aims to produce confident and culturally literate youths.

 Singapore Chinese Cultural Contribution Award (Organisational)