Mama, Big Bird and the Cat is an adaptation by Margaret Chan of excerpts from the plays of Kuo Pao Kun: Mama Looking for Her Cat (1988), The Eagle and the Cat (1990 Chinese; 1995 English), and The Evening Climb (1995).

While the theme of multilingualism continues in this adaptation of Mama Looking for Her Cat, Margaret describes her play as bringing new and necessary perspectives to Kuo's seminal play of an old Hokkien woman left behind by her children who are schooled in English and Mandarin. The didactic message of the original text now gives way to a dialectic, where the voices of younger people are given equal hearing.

The production Mama, Big Bird and the Cat is a SMU-X course which emplhasises experiential learning through collaborations between students and industry players. SMU students Daniel Lee and Keith Choo direct an ensemble that features veterans of the stage Ali Khan and Margaret Chan working alongside fifteen SMU student performers and nine ITE students in production and technical management.

Mama, Big Bird and the Cat is supported by Centre 42, and is a follow-up to an earlier seminar-presentation "The Vault: Big Bird and the Cat, an exploration intot he metaphors of the plays of Kuo Pao Kun" held on 12 October 2015.

For more details about Centre 42's The Vault programme, visit www.centre42.sg.