By Nick Christophers
From a young boy Timmy Ong was drawn to the arts whether it be art, music, dance or writing. A native of Malaysia he has made Manhattan his new home to cultivate his talents makes him a well-rounded artist. He acquired a BA in Technology and he managed to balance being a freelance artist and working in the corporate world. Even though he transitioned totally into the artist side of things the corporate experience was very helpful.
“I understand working as a gear in a bigger system, and the power of visibility–you may be surprised how many people in the corporate world get promoted because they “stand out” as a personality trait! For example, I am not afraid to pitch myself to casting if I come across a role that I think fits me well, because even if they don’t think I am a good fit, I have now made myself visible to that office.”
Timmy has accomplished very much in the little time he had breaking into the entertainment industry. So far, in his home country he has starred in leading and featured roles in large-scale original musicals. For example, “Serious Cat Talk”, a Mandarin language pilot film about lion dance starred Timmy as the lead and won Best Cinematography in Around Film Festival (ARFF) Barcelona. With six years of experience so far, he went on to complete an MFA in Acting program at The New School of Drama, and then took off running again.
When it comes to which discipline he enjoys most, it is difficult to point out just one. Since for Timmy, when he is in a musical, he longs to be in a concert or cabaret; when he is making music, he wants to be in a play. Either way, he understands each genre stands on its own merit and nothing pleases him more than collaborating with like-minded artists. Timmy was always in love with the arts, but only had the chance to take up the piano when he was fourteen years old. He did not realize until he took up the cello, guitar, and pipa that music was in his blood. While in college, his love for theatre and dance took root. He began studying the art of dance in its many facets.
Timmy would soon be landing roles in New York in projects like “Mr. Holland’s Opus, A New Musical”, which required him to not just act, sing, and dance, but also play the cello. In the more demanding play “The Sacrifice of Cassamba Becker”, he was tasked with singing, playing the guitar and cello and acting using a very particular body language playing an anthropomorphic vulture. For that role he was nominated for the 2023 BroadwayWorld Off-Broadway Awards for Best Performance in A Play.
One of his more prominent accomplishments is his commissioned work under the Green-Eyed Monster Project. It is a theater-making partnership that aims to tell stories with new perspectives and uses theatre as a medium to create social awareness, especially on less discussed subject matters. Along with his partner, Nik Waheeda they have worked on projects like “Second Chances”, a two-hander one-act play; “The Girl Who Is Not Depressed”, a spoken-word site-specific theater set in a dressing room; “This Is All I Have”, a site-specific movement theater set in a microhouse; and “Soul Food”, a site-specific multi-disciplinary surrealist theater set in a cafe.
“I was one of the commissioned artists and created two distinct pieces of site-specific theater for them. I submitted two proposals expecting one to be accepted, but I guess they liked both enough that they wanted both pieces to be made!
Recently he was commissioned by A.R.T./New York based on the face he is also a theater maker in his own right. He enjoys blending text, music, dance and more to tell a story. In conjunction with their 50th anniversary celebration, the organization hosted an open “House Party” featuring a wide variety of performances from various theatre companies. Every corner of the organization’s complex was filled with installations and performances from independent artists that represent the complete identity of the nonprofit theatre community in NYC.
Currently, Timmy has been invited by the Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA) to develop an upcoming project: a devised and immersive production sharing stories of the New York Chinatown from the 1980s and 1990s. It is envisioned to be a “walking show”, in which the audience moves with the performers from location to location and witnesses’ snippets of true stories from turbulent bygone times. This project is slated to go up in May 2024.
He is also an ensemble member of the Spellbound Theater, a company that creates “baby theater” for audiences 0-5. Timmy has been offered to translate their pop-up storytelling show about the subway, titled “Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, Please” into Mandarin. For the remainder of 2024, he hopes to create more of his own work but will still be auditioning for roles in other projects. Timmy is diverse in his work and is looking to expand his talents wherever possible.
