Tiger mums, super tutors: new Hong Kong musical-comedy pokes fun at the city’s quirks
- ‘Project After 6: Mou Man Tai’ celebrates the weird and wonderful things that Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation’s Lindsey McAlister has discovered about the city
- None of its 33-strong ensemble cast are singers or actors by trade – two members talk about the sacrifices they made and why it was worth it
Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong for the first time in 1986, Lindsey McAlister intrinsically knew that she had found her new home.
“I literally got off the train in Kowloon Tong and put my foot on Hong Kong soil, and I heard the angel choir,” the British playwright says. “It was like, ‘You’ve been brought here to do something magical.’”
That feeling was so strong that even though she had a job waiting for her back in the UK at Arts Council England, she immediately called her boss to say she wouldn’t be taking the position after all.
McAlister’s love for Hong Kong has remained steadfast. Since her arrival over three decades ago, the playwright has become a stalwart in the city’s performing arts scene, having founded the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation in 1993.
Now, she is debuting Project After 6: Mou Man Tai, a new musical-comedy that celebrates the quirky and wonderful things that she has discovered and learned about the city.
Set to be staged at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place from June 16-24, the musical is named after the pervasive can-do spirit of Hongkongers, embodied by the colloquial Cantonese term mou man tai, which means “no problem”.