Wayne Lai to Star in Musical Play, “Scars of the Sea”

Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), Joyce Koi (蓋鳴暉), and Emily Kwan (關寶慧) attended a press conference for their upcoming musical play Scars of the Sea <星海留痕>, a biographical play about the 1930s Cantonese opera star Tang Man Mei (小明星).

Though Joyce is a professional Cantonese opera singer herself, she finds Tang Man Mei’s voice hard to imitate and is therefore putting more effort in practicing Tang Man Mei’s songs.

Recently, a gossip magazine claimed that Joyce went through a mental breakdown due to the stress accumulated from the packed filming schedule of TVB’s Romantic Repertoire <水髮胭脂> and the management of her own Cantonese opera troupe. The magazine published a photo of Joyce looking rather delirious while reading her script on set, and claimed that Joyce was being mentally unstable at the time. Joyce denied, “The report is making things up. That day my assistant was reading the script with me, but it only showed me in the photo. My waist was hurting at the time. If that’s how they want to write about me, there is nothing I can do about it.”

Joyce admitted that she has been stressed about work, but said, “I have stress because I’m passionate about my work.”

There were reports indicating that Joyce had to manage her troupe’s finances all by herself. “[The magazine] is writing as if they sleep under my bed every night. I will not comment on the report because it deals with some private issues. However, I do have a professional looking over the troupe’s finances. I’m in charge of the performances. It’s my group and I’m the main performer, so I am responsible for the group’s success or loss.”

Anthony Wong Gives Wayne Lai Pressure

Scars of the Sea is Wayne’s first stage production. The three-hour production consists of numerous dance and singing numbers. Asked if he was worried about singing off-key during the performance, he laughed and said, “I’m terrified of everything. I’m terrified of forgetting my dialogue and not singing well. If I were a good singer, I’d be Eason Chan (陳奕迅) already.”

Wayne recently went to Shanghai to do some location filming for the TVB epic drama Lord of Shanghai <梟雄>, leaving him only three weeks to prepare for the production of Scars of the Sea. Since Lord of Shanghai costar, Anthony Wong (黃秋生), is a frequent stage performer, did he give Wayne any tips? Wayne said, “That bad boy has already put pressure on me. He said he will definitely watch my performance.”

Source: Ming Pao

This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.