SINGAPORE, July 17 — It should come as no surprise that this year has turned out to be the year when the arts scene decided to dust off its history books and plunge into the SG50 dialogue. Whether it is a movie (1965) or a graphic novel (The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye), artists have been turning to history as inspiration in the most obvious way.

And the theatre scene has been on overdrive. We have already been treated to the likes of Dim Sum Dollies' two-parter comedy “The History Of Singapore,” W!ld Rice’s Singapore-Malaysia love letter of sorts “Another Country” and the somewhat ill-fated “Singapura: The Musical.” Next month, there is Yusof, a play about Singapore’s first President Yusof Ishak, that will be staged at the Esplanade.

But arguably the most anticipated of the lot will be next week’s “The LKY Musical.” The epic production looks at the life of Lee Kuan Yew from his early days at Raffles College to the founding of Singapore, and he’s joined by other colourful characters in Singapore’s modern history, including his wife Kwa Geok Choo and his political rival Lim Chin Siong.

Its producers, Metropolitan Productions, roped in Adrian Pang and Sharon Au to play Mr and Mrs Lee, and assembled a top-notch creative team that includes Dick Lee (music), Stephen Clark (lyrics), Tony Petito (script) and Meira Chand (story), who have come together to craft “The LKY Musical” storyline and songs. Helming it is West End director Steven Dexter, who is no stranger to the scene here, having done Singapore Repertory Theatre’s big productions such as “Forbidden City: Portrait Of An Empress” and “Fried Rice Paradise,”" among others.

With the glut of history-themed productions around, the biggest challenge has been finding a unique way to tell stories that people already know, said Dexter, who reckoned it’s symptomatic of popular culture everywhere.

“People come to musicals and they’ve seen the movie, they’ve heard the pop songs — it’s difficult to surprise people. But I’ve got a feeling (The LKY Musical) is going to be a breathtaking production.”

History mixed with entertainment, not to mention the historical image and the human sides of the musical’s protagonists, are things they’ve had to balance. Approaching the piece, Dexter took his cues from precedents such as Evita, which was about the Argentinian political leader Eva Peron, and even his own Forbidden City, which looked at the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi.

“A person’s life isn’t always built up in a musical theatre dramatic arc so the challenge has been to give it that arc,” said Dexter, who sees the relationship between political rivals Lee and Lim as the central focus in the musical, with Mrs Lee as her husband’s guiding pillar throughout it all.

For actor Sebastian Tan, who plays Koh Teong Koo, the rickshaw puller who saved Lee’s life during the Japanese Occupation, mixing politics with entertainment was always going to be tricky. “It is difficult to do politics and musicals, which is all about production numbers, dancing, jazz hands and all that,” he said. “But I think we have managed to find a good marriage between the two.”

At the end of the day, Pang pointed out, “to cram 25 years of history into two hours onstage was always going to be a huge task”. “We’re just getting a glimpse, a hint of what it was like,” he said.

The “LKY Musical” runs from July 21 to Aug 16, 7.30pm, at Sands Theatre, MasterCard Theatres, Marina Bay Sands. With weekend matinees. Tickets from SISTIC. — TODAY