Chandran K. Lingam is a theatre director who gained prominence for his work with the Experimental Theatre Club in the '70s and '80s. A full-time educator, he is a singular theatre practitioner known for his physically spare yet highly emotive productions based on traditionalist approaches that bring out exceptional performances from his cast.

Growing up, Chandran K. Lingam had his first encounter of the arts through his father who instilled in him a love for reading, music, dance and drama. The first-ever play he saw was a production of Peter Pan, and he was hooked after that.

His passion for theatre, especially Anglo-American drama, grew in secondary school as he portrayed Duke de la Trémouille in Saint Joan and Caesar in Androcles and the Lion. In his final year, Chandran made his directorial debut in a production of Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General. Directing his schoolmates, Chandran discovered his enthusiasm for acting was surpassed by a newfound passion for directing.

Chandran went on to attend the University of Singapore where he became a member of the Drama Society and the Literary Society. He spent all his spare time—even sacrificing valuable study time for rehearsals—involved in arts productions and events with the two societies ranging from poetry events, music performances, to avant-garde theatre. He also joined the Experimental Theatre Club around this period, beginning a significant career as a director with the Club.

With the University of Singapore Drama Society, he directed a number of plays, most significantly Peter Shaffer’s Equus starring a young Lim Kay Tong. The play contained utterances of the f-word—a first for Singapore theatre—resulting in a high amount of public interest and critical controversy that was rarely seen in the Singapore theatre scene. It was to be a signal of Chandran’s imminent prominence in Singapore theatre.

In 1974, Chandran graduated from the University of Singapore, and focused his artistic efforts on his directorial work with the Experimental Theatre Club. Working full-time as a lecturer at the Vocational and Industrial Training Board (now Institute of Technical Education), he put whatever spare time he had into his art, attending rehearsals after work every day till late into the night. With Chandran at the helm, the Club gained a reputation in the '70s and the '80s for spare and emotionally wrenching works presented through unwavering traditionalist approaches and with small casts, which saw Chandran working with actors such as Suresh Menon, Kim Ramakrishnan, Karan Nair and T. Sasitharan. Chandran’s reputation and significance as an enigmatic theatre director also grew with the Club, with him being described in the '80s by Max Le Blond as both "[Singapore] theatre's enfant terrible" and "the most talented director working in the Singapore theatre today". (The Straits Times, 19 Jul 1981).

His last play with the Experimental Theatre Club during this fruitful period was the acclaimed Hayavadana in 1990, which starred Neo Swee Lin, Gerald Chew and T. Sasitharan. After this, he—and the Experimental Theatre Club—went on an extended hiatus from the Singapore theatre scene.

In 2006, Chandran returned to the theatre scene with a restaging of Hayavadana, now titled Horseface, which was presented under the name of the Experimental Theatre Club. He then directed Cabaret Kurt Weill: An Homage to Wayward Women in 2010 at the invitation of singer Gabrille Maes and composer John Sharpley. Most recently, in 2012, Chandran served as artistic director of the OperaViva-presented Singapore opera FENCES, which featured music by John Sharpley and a libretto by Robert Yeo.

Currently a full-time teacher at St. Francis Methodist School, Chandran continues to read widely to expand his theatre vocabulary and broaden his artistic scope.