Melodie Lee looks behind actress Selena Tan’s bubbly facade.

As she reclined Cleopatra-like on her poolside divan, the larger-than-life Dim Sum Dollies star muses that she can be likened to a bamboo plant.

“I like the bamboo because it’s sturdy and strong,” the 37-year-old theatre director-performer quietly says when asked what kind of plant she is most like. “No matter how you bend it, it knows where its trunk is. It’s pretty too, in an unconventional way.”

Best known as one of the cabaret comic trio, Selena Tan is anything but conventional. She runs her own nine-year-old theatre company Dream Academy Productions, which has produced blockbuster shows like Dim Sum Dollies and Broadway Beng.

She is also a familiar face on television, having acted in popular sitcoms such as Under One Roof and PCK Pte Ltd. She received the Asian Television Award for Best Actress In A Comedy Series two years in a row (2004 and 2005) for her role in Channel 5’s Daddy’s Girls.

And the lady shows no signs of slowing down.

Just in July this year, her brand-new wacky musical-comedy that she wrote, SING DOLLAR, began its run in the theatres. Selena plays Tiger Lily, a brash and “out-there” tiger beer aunty. The musical features some of Singapore’s most notable comedians, including the usual suspects like Hossan Leong and the main cast of Dim Sum Dollies. It is no wonder then, that she truly is one busy woman. Before the interview with HYPE, she bustles around her house and apologises before zipping off to run a “quick errand”.

During that time, you observe that her stylish bungalow, quietly tucked away from the city beside the cool, leafy Clementi Park, looks as if it were made for entertaining guests. With a poolside dining table complete with white deck chairs, a lounge divan set, and not to mention the glistening clear lap pool, you can picture fortnightly decadent dinner parties being thrown here.

Before long, you hear the slam of her car door, and she strides in, apologising profusely once more for the delay.

Unlike the outlandish characters she often portrays onstage, Selena is refreshingly natural, as she perches on her divan cross-legged, barefaced and clad in a minimalist grey top and plain white slacks.

You ask if there is anything she will never wear and she chuckles lightly for the first time in the interview. “Spandex! I will never wear bright pink spandex,” she says.

Other than that, she seems deep in thought throughout, and answers in a rather business-like and concise manner.

While fielding the interview questions, she whips out her compact case and begins doing her make-up, methodically applying the full works with an expert hand. Seeing how she has been acting since she was 14, it is no surprise that she is used to dolling herself up.

As she layers the makeup around her eyes, you notice that she looks rather tired. When probed about what she is currently working on, she sighs and says, “Right now, we’re rehearsing for SING DOLLAR, along with countless workshops.” She pauses before looking up from her compact to meet your gaze. “Running a business at the same time is really tiring,” she says.

During the interview, music composer and longtime friend, Elaine Chan, walks across the hallway. Selena mutters an apology before turning to arrange meetings with her.

Despite her busy schedule, with all the rehearsals and interviews, Selena insists that she still manages to make time for her husband and their group of close friends whenever she can. “I try not to work on weekends because those are reserved for family,” she says.

But when you talk about her plans for the year, she seems to forget all her tiredness.

For the first time in the interview, her eyes crinkle as she breaks into a smile. “It’s definitely going to be a big year for us and we’re very excited. In these tough times, we’ve got many comedies lined up that are sure to cheer anyone up.”

About SING DOLLAR

When the financial crisis first hit Singapore, Selena wanted to reach out to her fellow Singaporeans and saw it as a good opportunity for a musical comedy, which had been brimming in her head for some time.

In her own time and fashion, Selena interpreted the situation as one with “a lot of interesting reactions, new possibilities and potentially hilarious situations to write about”.

After eight months of brainstorming and research, her first full-length musical comedy SING DOLLAR was finalised, drawing inspiration from local newspapers and the grapevine.

She says, “We’ve heard of people losing so much money.”

“So the musical is basically showing what Singaporeans are going through but with a little spice added.”

Based in Geylang, the storyline revovles around eight characters, some of which includes a moonlighting maid, a retrenched banker, a Bangladeshi dishwasher and a Tiger Beer aunty – all of whom are non-fictional and based on Selena’s personal experiences in the red light district.

While writing the script, Selena interviewed prostitutes, foreign labour workers, domestic maids and others at Geylang to use as material to create over-the-top yet realistic and easily identifiable characters for her show.

Featuring an all-star cast of well-loved comedians like Kumar and Hossan Leong, Selena gathered the team at her production house Dream Academy to produce “a great show with high production value at a reasonable price”.

She describes the musical comedy as being a bit different from her usual stand-up comedies or cabaret shows.

“It is not very different from my other shows like the Dim Sum Dollies. The main difference is that the musical has a storyline. I would like to describe it as very Chicago.”