Nopamat Veohong
Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
In 1962, a young and multi-talented rising Hollywood star, after graduating with distinction with a Master’s degree in Theatre Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles, chose the conscientious career path of returning to her motherland and leaving behind the glamorous life of tinsel town, having declined a hard-earned proposition from a major movie studio. After joining the teaching staff of the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Sodsai Pantoomkomol (née Vanij-Vadhana, stage name Sondi Sodsai) initiated a curriculum in dramatic arts in 1964, the first time that modern theatre had ever been incorporated into the Thai higher education system. Ever since then she has worked relentlessly to lay a firm foundation for modern theatre. Over the years, she has staged numerous plays from the repertoire of modern drama and has thus introduced the Thai public to distinctive examples of world dramatic literature. Hundreds of graduates from this institution, and the acting school she helped found at Thai Television Channel 3, have been instrumental and active in all areas of theatre, film and television, as well as in the entertainment industry as a whole, particularly in the fields of acting, directing and dramatic and creative writing. As a pioneer of modern theatre whose huge contribution has been to the benefit of the academic and professional arenas in modern theatre, her role as teacher, scholar and artist has been widely recognized and her powerful influence on Thai modern theatre remains strong today. In 2011, the Department of Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, which she established single-handedly in 1972, honoured her by naming its new theatre The Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts. In 2012, she was given the title of National Artist in Performing Arts.
(Presented in the 2013 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum: The Emergence and Heritage of Asian Women Intellectuals, 10-11 September 2013, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Institute of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Indian Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University)