After Andie Chen and Sharon Au, the next television celebrity to take to the stage this year will be Jeanette Aw.

She will be playing the role of cabaret star Lulu in the latest restaging of the popular musical Beauty World, which opens in November at Victoria Theatre.

But for the 36-year-old actress, the experience is really about coming full circle, having been a theatre studies graduate at the National University of Singapore.

“I’ve always wanted to go back to stage acting. The last time was when I was in school for my graduation play called The Tai Tais,” she said during Monday’s media preview. She added that going back to theatre will be a “familiar yet foreign” experience. “When I did my first TV drama, it took a bit of adjusting — people were saying I was too theatrical, so it took some fine-tuning before I finally got the hang of TV. But now, at least I have a foundation — the transition wouldn’t be so painful.”

Aw follows in the footsteps of other celebrities doing musicals this year, such as Chen, who is the lead male role in the ongoing December Rains, and Au, who played Madam Kwa Geok Choo in The LKY Musical. “I think when you do TV long enough, you do want to try theatre and stage. It adds credibility to your performance,” Aw said, alluding to the advantage of the editing process associated with television work. “And I also think for artistes who do TV, it’s very hard to get time off to be involved in a (stage) production, especially for a long run,” added Aw, who had previously seen two versions of Beauty World and their respective Lulus: Denise Tan in W!ld Rice’s 2008 take and Au in MediaCorp’s 1998 version.

And after “badgering” her managers for the longest time, the Beauty World gig came rather serendipitously: She was involved in the Singapore Day event in Shanghai earlier this year, where Beauty World’s composer Dick Lee, who is also directing this version, was present.

“He had known I’ve always wanted to go back to stage but he’d never heard me sing (until then). He was like, ‘Eh, why haven’t you ever told me you could at least sing a song?’” she said with a laugh. An audition later, and the suggestion to play Lulu was broached.

DARK AND REAL

According to Lee and playwright Michael Chiang, this version of Beauty World will be different from previous ones.

Originally written in 1988, the musical follows the story of a Malaysian girl named Ivy Chan Poh Choo who comes to Singapore and finds herself drawn into the world of night clubs and cabaret girls, of which Lulu was at the top of the heap. Lee, who will be helming the musical for the first time, will be aiming for a more “real” take that reflects life back then.

“A cabaret in 1965 wasn’t a wonderful place to be. It was almost being phased out, so it would have been a very rundown place with all these tired girls. I wanted Ivy, an innocent girl, to come to this very frightening place, not a wonderful fun place, which is how it has always been portrayed. The setting will be a bit more sad and dangerous for her, without changing a word in the script,” said Lee.

Chiang added that it will be the same script as the 2008 version staged by Wild Rice, where he had added new scenes. This time around, he is settling for minor tweaks and has agreed with Lee’s “darker” vision. “Maybe it’s time to show the cabaret a bit more seedy and threatening, and less like an amusement park.”

Lee is also revamping the musical arrangements, taking out some of the Broadway-style vibe and looking at 1960s pop rhythms; “even the cha cha’s been slowed down” for greater authenticity. He also quite excited with the cast, who, like Aw, are all Beauty World noobs. These include, among others, Timothy Wan, Frances Lee, Joshua Lim, Cheryl Tan and … Janice Koh.

Yes, Koh might be a very familiar theatre actress, but her turn as Mummy the mama san marks her first musical. She pointed out how many of her peers have been part of at least one version of Beauty World and this is a kind of “continuing education”, she joked. Aside from taking up singing lessons, entering this world has been fascinating for her.

“What we now consider a seedy activity was actually a very open one (back then), it was part of entertainment at that time and there was very little moralizing about being in a cabaret, I think,” she said. “Now, that world is very much seen as the underbelly — the KTVs, the darkened windows and doors.”

SHINING STAR

And in this dark version, Aw is very much the star factor — in a very literal sense.

Said Chiang: “(Dick and I) both realised we needed a star — it’s quite important that you cast a star in this role because this is the night club queen and you need someone with the kind of sex appeal men respond to and I think Jeanette fits that bill. I think she’s a strong actress and she’s got that quality — she’s quite bewitching to look at.”

And that’s not all, Lee added: “She’s a fantastic dancer and this is something we’re gonna show everybody.”

From now until opening night, it is going to be a juggling act for Aw, who has been something of a creative busy bee (she had also released her second book in May, which was turned into an interactive exhibition at the National Museum of Singapore). She will be balancing rehearsals for Beauty World — including singing classes — and her ongoing shooting schedule for the MediaCorp Channel 8 drama The Dream Makers 2, which will air in December.

But instead of worrying about mixing up her characters, Aw actually welcomes the challenge.

“I would say Lulu keeps me sane,” she joked. “The character I’m playing (the actress Zhao Fei Er for The Dream Makers 2) is in depression and is very intense. Like when I was doing my research and watching all those documentaries about depression, it was so heavy that I sometimes felt I was a little affected. Juggling two characters at the same time gives me a brief respite — Lulu’s a little escape from someone who’s so depressed,” she laughed.

Beauty World runs from Nov 13 to Dec 12 at Victoria Theatre. Tickets from SISTIC.