By Adeline Chia

Audiences can catch Honk!, an Olivier Award-winning musical based on The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen, at Victoria Theatre next weekend.

It boasts some star power. The production is directed by Broadway Beng Sebastian Tan, who starred in the Singapore Repertory Theatre's version of the play in 2002. The Olivier Award is the British equivalent of Broadway's Tony Award.

Veteran actress Margaret Chan, who was last seen on stage in 2001, is making a cameo and the music is arranged by Elaine Chan, who was responsible for Chang & Eng and Dim Sum Dollies.

Despite the professional sheen to the production team and marketing material, the show is not put up by a theatre company, but by students at Singapore Management University (SMU) to close their two-week arts festival.

What is more, at $20 and $25 a ticket, the night's entertainment is good value for money - it costs about a third of the average price of a musical at the Esplanade.

SMU is one of three universities here which have been fattening up Singapore's busy arts calendar with their own arts festivals.

Over the past seven years, the festivals by SMU, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have been quietly growing in breadth, with an increasing number of events, and reach, drawing up to 20,000 visitors, including those from outside campus.

More professionals have also been roped into the programmes at SMU and NUS, increasing the allure of these events with the twin draw of star power and cheaper - or even free - tickets.

The objective of arts festivals, universities say, is to nurture interest in the arts in their students. And with more professionals coming on board to their extravaganzas, they hope to grow the arts-going audience base in Singapore too.

For NTU, its ongoing Nanyang Arts Festival, which is in its seventh edition, has always focused on student productions. The annual festival, which has 31 events this year, opened on Tuesday and ends on March 15.

It is funded by the $400,000 sum that the university sets aside for student arts events each year. Some highlights include concerts by the choir and Chinese orchestra, which are often sold out.

For SMU, which has a business background, the idea of an arts festival came about in 2003 when it wanted to showcase the performing talents of the co-curricular activity clubs.

It has 26 arts and culture groups.

Organised by students, the inaugural festival that year lasted a week and featured only student efforts.

Three years ago, it included professional artists who came to work with the students as performers, choreographers, directors or trainers. The festival was still a week long and student productions dominated.

Last year, the festival got serious. It ballooned to a two-week-long affair with a budget of $120,000. Half of the 20 events were devoted to professional artists and about 5,000 people attended the festival.

This year's affair, titled Re:Present and with the theme of art and time, runs on a budget of $150,000 which come from the university's coffers, sponsorship and ticket sales.

The programme is decided by an elected student committee with the university's art managers. Half of the 30 events are student efforts and only four are ticketed.

Free shows include Russian-trained pianist Victor Khor's concert, where he will play songs by British alternative rock band Radiohead on the piano.

LOL With Selena Tan is another free show by the Dim Sum Dolly comedienne, who is staging an hour-long stand-up routine.

Visual artists Chua Chye Teck, Jeremy Hiah and Kai Lam were also invited to collaborate on an art exhibition titled Welcome To The Real World.

Was it a conscious decision to rope in arts professionals?

Ms Shirley Soh, SMU Arts Festival steering committee adviser, says: 'We do not have to bring in celebrities for the sake of it even though for good programming, we have to strike some balance between well-known ones to attract the crowd and also new names to support emerging young artists.'

The professionals do not affect student ticket sales as shows by them are free. The ticketed events are for student performances in theatres outside campus, where SMU needs to recover the cost of renting the space.

More importantly, professionals pass valuable knowledge and skills to the young students.

Social Sciences student Joshua Lim, 23, who plays the lead role of Ugly in Honk!, says he learnt how the work of a director, musical director and choreographer came together for a production. 'Now when I see credits for producer and director in a programme, I know what their roles are.'

Then there is NUS, which is putting up its fourth arts festival from Feb 27 to March 15. The theme is Arts & Environment.

The festival packs 58 events over three weekends, spanning the performing, visual and literary arts. Just over half of the events are put up by students.

It is a good place to catch quality works at attractive prices. Productions by notable groups such as T.H.E. Dance Company, the dance company set up by award-winning choreographer Kuik Swee Boon, local theatre group spell#7, and a commissioned play written by enfant terrible playwright Li Xie and starring NUS students, all cost $21 or less per ticket.

NUS Centre For The Arts director Christine Khor says that roping in professionals 'lifts the profile of the festival and creates buzz'. Besides, it is also a good learning opportunity for students to learn from the pros.

Arts professionals also tap into the expertise of faculty staff and the results are quality commissions that can be re-staged.

Each year, the Centre For The Arts embarks on partnerships with Science faculties. In 2007, it partnered the Engineering faculty to present an interactive digital media festival; it collaborated with the Medicine faculty last year to present a festival about art and medicine.

Academics or scientists are matched to artists to create cross-disciplinary work. A successful hybrid was last year's Frozen Angels by The Necessary Stage, which was re-staged during the ongoing M1 Singapore Fringe Festival.

Director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma, both NUS alumni, spoke to Professor Alastair Campbell, a British bioethicist and director of the university's Centre for Biomedical Ethics, to learn about the moral dilemmas of stem cell research.

Their discussions led to a play about the impact of such scientific advances on human relationships.

Indeed, the festival has come a long way since it was started in 2006 to commemorate the centennial anniversary of NUS and to consolidate all the arts activities in the year into one platform.

Over the years, the festival has grown 'more professional and highly curated', says Ms Khor. The four-week, 109-event festival in 2007 has been tightened to 58 events over three weekends this year.

She does not worry that professional productions will crowd out student ones. 'It really is case-by-case for ticket sales. Some student shows are solidly backed by friends, family and professors.'

She declined to reveal the exact budget for the festival, saying only that it is a six-figure sum, of which 70 per cent comes from the centre's coffers and the rest from sponsorship.

About 20,000 people attend the NUS festival each year.

Is there a sense of competition among the universities to put up a bigger and better festival? No, she says. 'I go to their festival opening, there's no competing. We are different but complement each other.'

SMU's Ms Soh says: 'Some competition is always healthy, to make the festival bigger and better, and this all adds up to supporting the arts and artists in general.

'But this is not the driving force for SMU's arts festival. What is important for us is that the festival has relevance in its theme and programming to what's going on around us, that it catalyses students' interest in the arts and provides opportunities for our home-grown artists.'

Indeed, arts groups and professionals taking part in the university festival take their work seriously.

Choreographer Kuik, 34, who is presenting the dance performance Variance at the NUS arts festival, says: 'Although the audience will consist more of university audience, I treat it as a professional festival. Every production is important in introducing your company's work to the audience.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on January 15, 2009.