Sebastian Tan (Part II): They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway (that’s why Bengs like it)

[Read Part I here]

I get exhausted watching Sebastian, or Ah Piew, as he's known to friends, in almost any context. On stage, offstage, at friends' parties - Seb's almost always stealing the limelight, albeit unintentionally, with his incessant banter, dancing, singing, miming and about one soliloquy every half hour - in English, Singlish, Mandarin and then, Hokkien.

As Sebas­t­ian said dur­ing our pod­cast record­ing at the Dream Academy’s premises in Chip Bee Gar­dens, “I come from a Hokkien fam­ily, that’s why I can speak it (Hokkien) quite well”.

Quite well. The man makes Hokkien sound good.

Five years ago when I was busi­ness man­ager of an enter­tain­ment agency, I was told of a Sebas­t­ian Tan, an actor who was, in the words of a friend of his, ‘quite des­per­ate’ for work.

Looking through his CV then, which had a smattering of ensemble performances now and again with no television work, it seemed difficult to place him in any television role, which at that time, was the purpose of the company I worked for. No matter that he had had prior training during National Service, with Mindef's Music and Drama Com­pany.

Was Sebas­t­ian dis­il­lu­sioned at any point dur­ing his career at not being able to eke out a liv­ing despite being known as one of the more tal­ented men to ‘grad­u­ate’ from the MDC?

I don’t know if it was press pres­ence dur­ing our record­ing, but Sebas­t­ian seemed pretty ret­i­cent to recount any of the feel­ings of dis­ap­point­ment that I remem­ber him express­ing when I met him years ago.

Or maybe it’s because he’s got Broad­way Beng this com­ing week (and which is slated to tour KL as well later on in the year), and Army Daze in March. What­ever it is, Sebas­t­ian Tan Ah Piew deserves every minute in the limelight.

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