It’s not every day that you see a Singaporean perform in the lead role in an international production in Singapore.

For 27-year-old Singaporean Louisa Vilinne, that will be her reality soon.

Vilinne is the alternate Kim in the upcoming international production of Miss Saigon in Singapore from Aug. 15 to Sep. 15.

This means that for certain performances, Vilinne will star in the leading role of Kim. She’s also part of the ensemble for other performances.

Sitting down with Mothership, Vilinne shared her journey to taking her first bow at the Sands Theatre as the first Singaporean Kim to perform for a Singapore audience.

“Miss Saigon has always been my dream show, and Kim is my dream role, so it’s just incredible that I get to play it twice a week,” Vilinne said.

“Miss Saigon is truly an incredible feat of theatre. It is so visually stunning and it has one of the most beautiful music you’ll ever hear in the musical theatre canon…

It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, you will be humming the songs for weeks on end after you watch the show.”

Love for musical theatre started with Glee

Vilinne first fell in love with music when her mother taught her to play the piano.

At 12, something clicked in her when she saw Disney’s High School Musical.

Then came Glee while at CHIJ St. Nicholas, where she learned about musical theatre and joined the choir.

“There was just no turning back from that, I was obsessed.”

She knew she wanted to be part of the theatre scene but was not ready to be on stage just yet, and went to Ngee Ann Polytechnic to study arts business management.

Vilinne went on to work at the Singapore Art Museum before she decided to go back to school in LaSalle in 2018 to do musical theatre.

After a semester in LaSalle, Vilinne was invited to join a new musical theatre course at the University of Adelaide in Australia on a partial scholarship.

A month after graduating, Vilinne received the audition brief for Kim.

Despite having another job lined up, Kim was her dream role, so she sent in a recording of herself singing.

After a few more rounds of auditions, Vilinne landed the role of the alternate Kim.

Family recognising she had achieved her dream

Vilinne’s family have supported her musical theatre ambitions, but it was not easy to tell them that she wanted to go to Australia to pursue her dream.

“It wasn’t that I was embarrassed that I wanted to be an actor. It just didn’t seem like a really possible dream.”

Vilinne added that it was hard to tell her parents, who had not yet seen her on stage or singing at home.

“To try and explain that I really want to do this thing on stage where I express myself through song… I did not know how she was going to take it,” she said.

Only when her family came to see her perform at the Sydney Opera House in August 2023 did her mother finally understand how serious Vilinne was about pursuing musical theatre as a career.

Vilinne shared that her mother and younger sister came to watch her perform, and her sister was in tears as growing up, Vilinne talked about how much she wanted to be a musical theatre performer.

“It’s great to be on stage for your dream role, but nothing really beats seeing your loved ones recognise that you’ve achieved your dream.

It’s very special and makes me very emotional just thinking about it.”

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10-year handicap

Going down the path of musical theatre was no stroll in the park on a Sunday.

In university, Vilinne felt like a small fish swimming with sharks.

People in her course had been working towards a career in musical theatre since they were children.

Many had been dancing, singing, and performing since they were five, but Vilinne only decided she wanted to pursue musical theatre at 15.

“So I had to work really, really, really hard and sometimes it was really difficult when your efforts do not get rewarded,” she admitted.

It took her 10 years to prepare for the right opportunity, the lucky break she needed.

“I refuse to live in a reality where I wasn’t performing as a professional musical theatre performer. So I did almost everything in my life to put me on that track.”

On top of her university studies, Vilinne took dance and singing classes, as well as many courses. She kept auditioning and was rejected numerous times before Miss Saigon came along.

Being on stage was not all smooth sailing either.

During one performance as Kim, one of the child actors who plays Kim’s son Tam was sitting on Vilinne’s lap.

“I was supposed to bend down and look at Tam in the eye and fiddle with his clothes for a little, just like how a mom would.

It had been maybe two minutes of being on stage with Tam, but just as I bent down to face him, Tam sneezed…

It was really wet [and] it was really quite funny. I had to [tell myself], ‘Don’t laugh right now.’”

Sacrifices made

Vilinne has also had to make some difficult sacrifices to fulfil her dream of performing on stage.

As she reflected on all that she gave up, tears began to well up in her eyes.

“I had to leave my home,” Vilinne said, her voice full of emotion.

“I had to be far away from my family and friends. I’ve had to miss weddings, birthdays.”

It was even fresher for Vilinne as she recently had to make the tough call to miss her grandfather’s funeral.

She had just started rehearsing for Miss Saigon, so she had to decide whether to miss the first week of work at her dream job or fly hours to be back with her family.

Through tears, Vilinne shared how she witnessed the funeral through a WhatsApp video call. She watched the procession and saw all her cousins choosing her grandfather’s favourite items to place in the casket.

“That is the heartbreaking thing about having to leave,” she said.

Coming home to play Kim

Vilinne will soon come back home to Singapore to perform in Miss Saigon in August, and she could not be more excited about it.

She added that she is really excited for her first bow in Singapore at the Sands Theatre as Kim.

“It’s going to be an absolute core memory… I probably will be in tears but I’m going to hold it together.”

Vilinne expects that taking her first bow as Kim in Singapore will be incredibly emotional, as it is something she once thought of as impossible.

“And I also know that when I take that bow, it’s not going to be just for me. It’s going to be for every Singaporean performer who wants to do this as well, but didn’t think they could,” she added.

“It’s monumental, and I’m so thrilled to be the one doing it.”

Speaking on the local theatre scene in Singapore, Vilinne observed that it has been “blossoming” in the last few years, and shared her hope to return to Singapore and perform in a local theatre production one day.

Another thing Vilinne is excited about is Hokkien Mee.

“That is the one thing I absolutely cannot find in Australia. It is so frustrating… If you order Hokkien Mee, it will just be egg noodles. Where are my prawns?”

“It’s just not the same,” she said with a laugh.

Vilinne and the cast of Miss Saigon will be on stage at the Sands Theater from Aug. 15 to Sep. 22. Tickets can be purchased here.

Top photos courtesy of Louisa Vilinne