TAKE A LOOK INTO ERVINA’S STORY AS SOMEONE IN THE PERFORMING ARTS INDUSTRY

JAYNE LOO

As someone who was raised in Malaysia, not everyone would grow up enjoying local plays or theatre. Today we are interviewing one of the lecturers from IACT college, Ms Ervina who also happens to be someone in the Performing Arts industry.

In the interview, she will share how she got into the industry, her journey in the Performing Arts industry and what inspired her to get into the industry.

Ervina James, also known as Ms E in IACT college, works as a lecturer as her day job, but during her free time she engages into Performing Arts, “I engage into performing Arts especially in theatre, acting. I directed a few plays and was featured in a music video as a cameo.”

“I worked with an indie studio”, Ervina has played in various plays such as “Forgive Me”, she did a recent one called “Superhero the Muzikal” which was on the big stage. She acted in “4love” on Monday Shows before the pandemic started. She also shared about an upcoming play she is directing, “I directed ‘50 ways to leave your lover’ but I think because of the pandemic, it is going to be delayed till the end of December.”

Ervina started to have interest in Performing Arts from a young age but because of her parents not supporting the idea of her pursuing a future career in the industry and her parents paying for her studies, Ervina eventually went along with her parent’s choice and studied a different course. After she was able to support herself, she then began to pursue acting as her side job. She dwelled in Performing Arts, “I was studying and practicing at the same moment.”

Ervina shared how and what she was inspired by to be in this industry. She talked about this series she watched in the UK, ‘Neighbours’ when she was 10 years old. Although she only managed to watch a few episodes, she thought that the actors and actress played their characters well and made her have that sudden urge to act in a series one day, “There’s was this character , he was really cool and he was a jerk but he was also nice sometimes and I thought that I want to be a part of the industry one day. I was 10.”

She talked about some of the challenges she faced in the industry. “For me, because I have a day job, in terms of acting, it's just to invest my time to do the shows and to practice. Let's say if the practice was done much earlier, then it's easier for me to divide my time between teaching and leisure time.” She said she has to practice everyday when the show is a month away so she would take a day or two off to practice because she wants to be in the best condition during her play. In terms of directing, Ervina shared about the challenges she faced, as a director directing for an indie studio, unlike normal studios, sometimes directors are their own producers where they have to take care of all expenses not only for the actors and actresses but all for the whole crew, “that's why it's also a struggle to not waste money and direct a good play.”, Ervina quoted.

Ervina then talked about the changes throughout the years in the industry, “When I was young, I only knew the big productions, big companies, wherever being shown on Broadway, like names such as Les Misérables.” She shared that she didn't know that indie productions exist, small productions but impactful and a lot of potential actors and actresses. Throughout the years, technology is one of the only things that has changed and has evolved into much better quality. But in terms of movie acting, Ervina said it was the vibe that was different in indie studios compared to normal studios.

According to Ervina, she doesn’t have plans to leave the indie scene right now. She likes expressing herself freely no matter if she is acting or directing, and it’s much easier to do experiments and people in the indie scene are much more open to opinions and ideas unlike big companies where they have specific rules in terms of acting. “So for now, I would like to focus on the indie scene and slowly go to the big stage,” she hopes to bring the indie scene to a much bigger platform in the future so everyone can see and discover that indie scenes can also be a type of entertainment to everyone.

As a lecturer in IACT college, she also shared how she can always apply her skills in Performing Arts in her lectures. “One of my classes that I teach is Presentation Skills and there are a lot of things that are similar to what I experience from the industry, such as how you present yourself and stuff like that.” She told us how every lecture is relatable to different skills as she lectures certain classes so if she was to teach classes about management, she would have to relate skills involving management to her lectures.

Interested in Performing Arts? Ervina has got you covered! “My advice would be you have to have a passion for it, doesn't matter if you want to direct or act, you must have a passion for it.” There are different roles in the industry involving acting, directing, lighting, editing and more, there is no way to just stick with one and not trying other roles. The experience is the most important thing. The experience you have is how you can improve yourself in the future and know how the industry works.

We are certainly looking forward to more of Ervina’s progress in the Performing Arts industry and we hope to see more in the future!

Watch one of Ervina’s plays here : https://youtu.be/wqMN1hvD6L0 or check out her Instagram @errydayerry