Tan Kheng Hua

Tan Kheng Hua (simplified Chinese: 陈琼华; traditional Chinese: 陳瓊華; pinyin: Chén Qióng Huá; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Khêng-hôa; born 17 January 1963) is a Singaporean actress.

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Tan.

Tan Kheng Hua
陈琼华
Born	(1963-01-17) 17 January 1963 Singapore
Nationality	Singaporean
Alma mater	Indiana University
Occupation	actress
Home town	Singapore
Partner(s)	Lim Yu-Beng
Children	Lim Shi-An (daughter)
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	陳瓊華
Simplified Chinese	陈琼华
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Chén Qióng Huá Southern Min Hokkien POJ Tân Khêng-hôa

Career

Kheng took an interest in acting when she took a theatre elective, Acting 101, while in university in the US. After returning to Singapore, Kheng took up a job in public affairs and acted in her spare time.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Science Magna Cum Laude degree from Indiana University.

The first stage play she performed in was John Bowen's The Waiting Room directed by her cousin Ivan Heng. It took almost a decade before Tan became a full-time actress.

In the theatre, she is in the original casts of landmark plays such as Beauty World, Lao Jiu, Descendants of the Admiral Eunuch, Animal Farm, Cooling Off Day and recently, Falling, for which she won her second Life! Theatre Best Actress Award.

In television, Kheng is best known for her role as Margaret in Singapore’s longest running and most successful sitcom, Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd, for which she won an Asian Television Award for Best Actress (Comedy). Her first foray into Mandarin-language television, Beautiful Connection, earned her a nomination at the Star Awards.

On the international scene, Kheng is seen in The Philanthropist (NBC, Lead Supporting, Actor) The Patriarch (UFA, Lead Supporting, Actor), Serangoon Road (HBO Asia Original Series, Lead Guest), The Empress Dowager in Netflix Original Series, Marco Polo and Kerry Chu in the Warner Bros. film Crazy Rich Asians, which premiered in 2018.

Kheng also creates and produces for stage and television in Singapore including the critically acclaimed cabaret act, The Dim Sum Dollies; the dramas 9 Lives and Do Not Disturb, the latter being the first local TV series to receive the maximum 5-star rating from Straits Times Life!, the Mandarin serial, Mr & Mrs Kok and lifestyle infotainment on The Asian Food Channel.

She also creates and produces theatre and festivals outside of Singapore including No.7, an original theatre piece commissioned by the Georgetown Festival 2011 in Penang. No.7 was sold out with a waiting list. In 2014, she brought 64 Singaporean and Malaysian artists together in The SIN-PEN Colony to Penang’s Georgetown Festival celebrating the cities’ shared heritage of food, visual art, music, theatre and design. The theatre segment within The SIN-PEN Colony, 2 Houses, sold-out within four days. She conceptualized and produced The Twenty-Something Theatre Festival 2016 and Tropicana The Musical which opened to rave reviews on April 2017.

For her contributions to the arts, Kheng was one of fifty local stage personalities in an exhibition celebrating 50 years of Singapore theatre and part of twenty contemporary artists chosen to represent Singapore in Singapore: Inside Out, a showcase presented by the Singapore Tourism Board in Beijing, London and New York City to celebrate Singapore's fiftieth anniversary.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Ref
1996	Army Daze	Cavewoman
1999	That One Not Enough (那个不够)
2005	Cages	Ali Tan
2009	The Blue Mansion	Veronica Wee
2012	Sex.Violence.FamilyValues
2016	The Faith of Anna Waters	Charlotte Sharma
2018	Crazy Rich Asians	Kerry Chu	[1]
2019	The Garden of Evening Mists	Emily

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref
1994–1995	Masters of the Sea
1995	Dick Lee with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra	Herself, as host	variety show
1997–2007	Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd	Margaret Phua	7 seasons
1999	AlterAsians – Iris’ Rice Bowl	Iris	Miniseries
2000	A War Diary
2002	Beautiful Connection	Mo Lan Ying
2003	The New Home
2008–2009	Sayang Sayang	Nellie Tan	2 seasons
2013	Serangoon Road	Artik	1 episode
2014	Marco Polo	Xie Daoqing	8 episodes
2015	The Pupil S2	Shirley Woo
2017	BRA	Gloria Yap	2 episodes
2020	Medical Police	Bao Tsai	1 episode
2020	Magnum PI	Lynn Yang
2021	Kung Fu	Mei-Li Chen	Main role	[1]

Theatre

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Drama

• Invitation To Treat – The Eleanor Wong Trilogy by Eleanor Wong (2003)
• Luna-Id: The Lover by Harold Pinter (Sarah, 2004)
• Wild Rice: Animal Farm adapted by Ian Wooldridge (Clover, 2002)
• Action Theatre: Autumn Tomyam by Desmond Sim (Marge Lerner, 2001)
• TheatreWorks: Trojan Women by Euripedes (Andromeda, 1991)
• Mad Forest by Caryl Churchill (Lucia, Dog, 1990)
• Mergers & Accusations/Wills & Secession by Eleanor Wong (Ellen Toh, 2001)
• Fiction Farm: The Blue Room by David Hare (Au Pair, Model, 1999)
• Closer by Patrick Marber (Anna, 2000)
• Practice Performing Arts: The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertold Brecht (emsemble, 1989)
• Theatreworks: Descendants of the Admiral Eunuch by Kuo Pao Kun (ensemble, winner Critics Award Best Acting Ensemble Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre, 1996)
• Lao Jiu by Kuo Pao Kun (ensemble, Perth Festival 1994)
• Longing (ensemble, outdoor performance)
• Broken Birds (ensemble, outdoor performance, 1995)

Musicals

• Toy Factory: Guys & Dolls by Damon Runyon (Sarah Brown, 1999)
• TheatreWorks: Beauty World (Lulu, lead, South East Asian Theatre Festival and Tokyo International Theatre Festival in Japan)
• Music & Movement: Kampong Amber by Catherine Lim (May, lead, opening show Singapore Arts Festival 1994)

Awards and nominations

• Art Nation Best Actress Award (2003)
• DBS Life! Theatre Award, Best Actress (2002),
• Asian Television Award, Best Comedic Performance by an Actress (2002),
• Asian Television Award Highly Commended Performance by an Actress (2003),
• Star Awards (Mandarin) Nominated Best Supporting Actress (2002),
• Asian Television Award Runner-up Best Current Affairs & Magazine Presenter (2000),
• JCCI Singapore Foundation Culture Awards for Contributions to Singapore (1998),
• Critics Choice for Best Actor Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre (1997), *Indiana University Founders Day Award for High Scholastic Achievement (1984, 1985, 1986), *National Colours Awards for Gymnastics (1977) (Noteworthy Selections: 21 Remarkable Women of *Singapore by the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware))

References

1. "Actress Tan Kheng Hua, 57, gets new Hollywood breakthrough, cast in pilot of Kung Fu reboot". Retrieved 9 July 2020.