SINGAPORE — And it’s off and running. New writing centre Centre 42 opened its doors yesterday for a sneak peek into its very blue Waterloo Street premises before its official opening in July.

And judging from the crowd present, it’s a highly-anticipated event, with folks from the National Arts Council, the Esplanade and the Singapore International Festival Of Arts present, not to mention actors and, most importantly, playwrights. Spotted were the likes of Robert Yeo, Stella Kon, Michael Chiang (who helped design the centre’s cloud-like logo), Verena Tay, Desmond Sim, Joel Tan and Robin Loon, among others.

Loon, of course, die-die *had* to be there — he’s the centre’s Head Of Documentation, Dramaturgy and Discourse with Casey Lim as its Executive Director.

It’s not a national theatre or a national writing centre, Loon clarified in his opening speech, but everyone would probably agree that it’s definitely a welcome presence. He tipped his hat off to the pre-War bungalow’s history as Action Theatre’s homebase before it moved to Aliwal Arts Centre. Its name, too, alludes to the defunct Centre 65 arts centre founded by late Goh Poh Seng.

It’s still early days for this particular, ahem, “Blue Mansion” and Lim appealed for patience as they slowly get the place up and running. In the meantime, to whet our appetites, a short programme was held at the centre’s rehearsal room and black box spaces. Serene Chen, Nora Samosir and Robin Goh read excerpts from a bunch of pieces including Leow Puay Tin’s Three Children, Haresh Sharma’s Galileo I Feel The Earth Move, Tan Tarn How’s Fear Of Writing, Chiang’s Private Parts, Sim’s Autumn Tomyam, Kuo Pao Kun’s The Descendants Of The Eunuch Admiral and Lim Chor Pee’s Mimi Fan.

What’s in store? You already know about The Boiler Room writing programme, but there are other platforms as well: The Vault, which will comprise a series of readings (and other forms of presentation) of Singapore works; The Living Room, a series of talks, lectures and seminars; The Repository, aka a library of archival material; and Citizen’s Reviews, where folks can submit theatre reviews or other forms of writing, which will be published online.

For more information on Centre 42, visit http://centre42.sg/