Shayna Toh
AUTHOR, COMPOSER AND LYRICIST

Shayna Toh is from Singapore and a Rhode Island-based student. She composed her very first song titled “My Very First Waltz” at age six. Her 15-minute, one-act play, Where Your Dream Takes You, a winning entry for a national playwriting competition, was showcased by the Singapore Repertory Theatre over five performances at the DBS Arts Centre in 2008, when she was 11.

Bringing together her love for intersectional music genres and her penchant for plays, she wrote and composed her first musical, Firefly In The Light—A New Musical in 2014. This 75-minute, 12-song pop/rock musical based on a pop song she had penned a few years back, premiered at The Arts House in Singapore, to a one-show-only, sold-out crowd in November, 2014. Firefly In The Light—A New Musical has since been expanded to a 2-hour, 22-song show and is an Official Selection of the 2017 New York Musical Festival (July – August 2017) (nymf.org/fireflyinthelight).

Her second musical The Olive Trees was presented, over three performances at the Mini-Musical Festival in Spring 2017 by Brown University’s Musical Forum (youtu.be/N1QsOJIS6GI).

Shayna is a winner of the 2019 New Voices Project, a musical theatre development program for young musical theatre playwrights, composers and lyricists under the age of 26, hosted by New Musicals Inc. in Los Angeles with support from Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Entertainment (https://www.broadwayworld.com/los-angeles/article/New-Voices-Project-2019-Winners-Announced-20190301).

She music directed the full-length musicals Pippin staged by Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan in Fall 2017 and Heathers the Musical staged by Brown University’s Musical Forum in Spring 2018, both of which played for five performances.

Her songs, “We Own The World” and “When The World Turns” were Finalists in the Pop category of the Great American Song Contest 2013 (greatamericansong.com/honorary-2013.php) and the Open category of the UK Songwriting Contest 2011, respectively.

As a vocalist, she has performed Claude-Michel Schönberg’s “I’d Give My Life For You” at the American Protégé International Vocal Competition Winners’ Recital in Carnegie Hall, New York in 2014. She most recently played the part of Princess Puffer in The Mystery Of Edwin Drood staged by Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan in the Fall of 2016. Apart from singing, Shayna plays the piano, electone, cello and guitar.

Among the several literary work she has had published, is a children’s book she authored in 2013, on urban nature deficit. The publication serves as a curriculum resource at Singapore’s national libraries and primary schools, and was featured literature for biodiversity festivals in Singapore and Earth Day celebrations in Australia, Korea and Japan.

Shayna has been awarded grants by Hong Leong Foundation and the National Arts Council, Singapore for Firefly In The Light—A New Musical. Her other staged-theatrical and published-literary work by various producers and publishers received grants from SPH Foundation, Jane Goodall Institute and Shaw Foundation.

shaynatoh.com