Kuo Pao Kun is one of the most important figures in Singapore arts and civil society. He was a playwright, director, teacher, activist, a great friend to many, and a rare visionary. He produced a major body of theatrical work, including the plays The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole, The Silly Little Girl and the Funny Old Tree, Mama Looking for Her Cat, Lao Jiu, Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral, and The Spirits Play. Pao Kun also founded or co-founded four major arts institutions: Practice Performing Arts School (1965), The Theatre Practice (1986), The Substation (1990), and the Theatre Training & Research Programme at Practice Performing Arts School (2000).

Kuo Pao Kun, on the first anniversary of The Substation, September 1991: "If there is any success, it is chiefly based on the artists' active use of The Substation and the tremendous patronage of the arts-goers. And they have both come in the greatest diversity Singapore could offer in terms of cultural/ racial/ language/ age backgrounds, or artistic forms, styles, approaches and sources. We thank you — artists, arts-goers, volunteers, sponsors, donors and MITA — for the support. And we invite you to continue supporting us in making The Substation an open space, A Home for the Arts. To give priority support to artistic things New, Young, Diverse and Interactive. And to give preference to worthy failures rather than mediocre successes."

T Sasitharan, former Artistic Director of The Substation, now Director of the Theatre Training & Research Programme:

"The most remarkable aspect of Kuo Pao Kun's extraordinary life was that it was so diverse. He was not merely a creator; although the creation of new work was obviously a significant part of his output. As writer and director he was constantly pushing the boundaries of convention in Singapore theatre. He challenged the entrenched and sometimes ossified boundaries of the 'acceptable' and the 'approved' in the theatre scene. But more than this, he was concerned about the capacities of people to make art and to express themselves as a people. This concern was channelled into the establishment of art schools, training centres, workshops, conferences, exchange studios and various other platforms, spaces and opportunities for artists to learn and continue working. Pao Kun was as concerned about the structures in societies that make art possible, as in making art itself."

Kwok Kian-Woon, chairman of Practice Performing Arts School:

"For many of us whose lives where touched by Kuo Pao Kun, we have not yet begun to contemplate what life would be like without him — without that warm and gentle smile, that rich, deep voice, that mischievous gleam in the eyes, that childlike wonderment, and that steely determination which recalls Samuel Beckett's line, 'I can't go on, I will go on'. What Singapore has lost is not just a gifted dramatist and a dedicated teacher, but a living model of a public intellectual. His deep humanity encouraged us to understand ourselves, appreciate the struggles of others, partake in each other's cultural world, and share in the larger heritage of humankind on a small and fragile planet."

Alfian Bin Sa'at, playwright and poet:

"His was a theatre of possibilities — bazaar Malay colliding with fast-extinct Chinese dialects in Mama Looking for Her Cat, the evocation of a marketplace in pre-colonial Singapore filled with ecstatic sounds and sights in Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral. His works on multiculturalism resisted any kind of codification from the state, and what strikes me as most interesting about them is that he located a Utopia based on the past. But it is not the past that is irrecoverable — by portraying them on stage, he brings them to our immediate presence, and also nudges them towards a possible future."