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In an experiment to uncover future trajectories for theatre via technology, our collaborators learn more about AI programming and its potential, to aid in the creation of brand new excerpts.

The They/Them: Verbatim Devising Workshop was led by The Necessary Stage's Resident Playwright and Cultural Medallion recipient Haresh Sharma, and was an introductory workshop for 10 selected participants who identify as trans or non-binary.

Spanning seven workshop sessions, participants explored devising, improvisations and verbatim sharings centred on their personal hopes and experiences as a trans/non-binary person. Their work across these sessions culminated in a closed-door presentation to invited guests

The workshop ran from 6 February to 27 February 2021.

The final presentation was performed by:


Crazy Kitten Smile
Irie Aman
Karuna Marsh
Levin Tan
Michael Neo
Naomi
Ness
Roo Lee
Sumita Thiagarajan
Wisely Chow
 

The Orange Playground 2018: Lab #2 was led by our Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma and theatre practitioner Edith Podesta, centred around interdisciplinary responses to texts within a stipulated time frame. The texts in question are excepts from Stranger to Myself: The Diary of a Bangladeshi in Singapore by MD Sharif Uddin, published by Landmark Books. 

Stranger to Myself: The Diary of a Bangladeshi in Singapore is the first memoir in English written by a Bangladeshi construction worker about his experience on working in Singapore. In September 2018, it won Best Non-Fiction Title at the Singapore Book Awards.

This iteration of The Orange Playground featured emerging artists including actors Deonn Yang, Salif Hardie and Andre Chong together with Sound Designer Jing Ng and Lighting Designer Liu Yong Huay. 



 

For 2018, our laboratories will focus on responses to and reinterpretation of texts. This first laboratory is centred around Haresh Sharma's Talk 1, first performed in 1994, subsequently reworked in 2000, and published as part of the anthology Shorts 1. For this series, our Artistic Director Alvin Tan will be working with Theatre GUMBO from Japan, along with artists from Singapore and Malaysia, including Bani Haykal, Ghafir Akbar, Gloria Tan and Rizman Putra.

Revisiting Talk

In this iteration of The Orange Playground, the team will be exploring new performance vocabularies through the genres of comedy and physical theatre. 

Talk 1 is an ensemble piece where 3 actors play a host of characters in a talk show. Stories of cinema bullying and gender discrimination are played out in both comic and tragic fashion. The work was originally directed by Alvin Tan and Kok Heng Leun in 1994. 

The workshop focuses  on different themes pertaining to the future. Members discussed the effects of surveillance capitalism, biometrics and how freely we share information in the public domain via social media and being constantly plugged to technology. 

This lab focuses on an exploration of themes such as morality and change. The artists consider the use of language and social media, experimenting with various forms to communicate about heaven and hell.

Why I want to leave [versus] Why I have to leave

Who departs?
Why they depart?
Where do they depart to?
What they expect when they arrive?
How is their new live?
When is this taking place?

A workshop conducted by Suguru Yamamoto of Hanchu-Yuei.

Suguru will guide the participants to a heightened awareness through focusing on the two main types of “places” in theatre:
• The place where it is performed (space)
• The place it is set in the script (scene)

With their sensibilities focused on these two “places”, participants will be able to discover new vocabularies in sincere acting and body movement. Everyone would have had an experience in which our feelings changed when the place altered, or a sense that somehow a certain place never works for us. We hope to lead participants to a greater realisation of the uniqueness of locality and the powerful influence of place in our everyday lives.

Created by Artistic Director Alvin Tan, The Orange Playground (TOP) is The Necessary Stage’s newest initiative in creative research and development. We seek to collaborate with artists in an exploratory environment where risks can be freely taken within and with the creative process. TOP will provide opportunities for free, ad-hoc collaborative “jamming” and play with emerging and established talents.

This Lab focused on the exchange of devising methodologies employed by David Glass and The Necessary Stage. The artists centred their explorations around In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park.

 

Created by Artistic Director Alvin Tan, The Orange Playground (TOP) is The Necessary Stage’s newest initiative in creative research and development. We seek to collaborate with artists in an exploratory environment where risks can be freely taken within and with the creative process. TOP will provide opportunities for free, ad-hoc collaborative “jamming” and play with emerging and established talents.

In this Lab, a new ensemble experiments with set design, sonic elements and text. 

Are rules meant to be broken? An ensemble questions and reimagines the conventions and norms surrounding their individual practices. How do we problematize the ideal?

Created by Artistic Director Alvin Tan, The Orange Playground (TOP) is The Necessary Stage’s newest initiative in creative research and development. We seek to collaborate with artists in an exploratory environment where risks can be freely taken within and with the creative process. TOP will provide opportunities for free, ad-hoc collaborative “jamming” and play with emerging and established talents.

Created by Artistic Director Alvin Tan, The Orange Playground (TOP) is The Necessary Stage’s newest initiative in creative research and development. We seek to collaborate with artists in an exploratory environment where risks can be freely taken within and with the creative process. TOP will provide opportunities for free, ad-hoc collaborative “jamming” and play with emerging and established talents.

The ensemble from this Lab will be improvising with interactive multimedia.