It’s a sad day for the local theatre scene as the influential director, actress and educator passed away yesterday, Feb 16, due to kidney problems, reports say. She was 57.

Sergeant, a stalwart in the local scene for more than 25 years, was a member of the School Of The Arts theatre faculty and the Singapore Drama Educators Association (a founding member and VP from 2005 to 2011), as well as a board of directors for iTheatre. She had also previously been the artistic director of community theatre group STARS and Mime Unlimited, and co-founder of Actors Theatre Circle.

As actress and director, she’s received a number of noms from the Life! Theatre awards, including one for directing Collab Theatre’s Metamorphoses in 2011. Other directing stints include The Finger Players/Mime Unlimited’s 2005’s award-winning Furthest North, Deepest South. More recently, there was, among others, Jonathan Lim’s one-person performance On This Emerald Hill.

Her very recent collab with Lim also proved to be her last — switching roles as she acted in Lim’s production of Murder By Chocolate at Gourmet Abu Dhabi just this month.

Her Facebook page has been filling up with heartfelt testimonials and messages since this morning. I didn’t know her very well, but I did catch Casting Back at the Esplanade last year, where, together with Nora Samosir, Sergeant shared much of her life story as an integral player of the then-burgeoning theatre scene. Her influence has carried on until today and she will be missed.