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Those Who Can’t, Teach turns the spotlight on the madcap lives of teachers and students in a typical secondary school in Singapore. As the teachers struggle daily to nurture and groom, the students prefer to hang out and “chillax”. With upskirting and Facebooking, griping and politicking, school takes on a whole new meaning as the colourful characters struggle to prove that those who can, teach.

Written by Singapore’s most prolific playwright Haresh Sharma, Those Who Can’t, Teach was first staged by The Necessary Stage in 1990 to critical acclaim. Twenty years later, Sharma revisits this classic to revitalise it for the Singapore Arts Festival 2010, transforming it into a powerful portrayal of the pressures and challenges facing teachers (and students) in schools in the 21st century.

Trilogy is a collection of three plays by Haresh Sharma that explore the fundamentals of text and realism by scrutinising pressing issues that affect contemporary society.

Written between 2006 and 2008, the plays – Fundamentally Happy, Good People and Gemuk Girls – feature simple but powerful narratives that question personal, social, cultural and political convictions.

These award-winning plays represent some of The Necessary Stage’s most critically-acclaimed works in recent years and are set to be contemporary classics of Singapore theatre.

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“The marginal voice here is now one of exile, suspension and loss; more than just a dissonant whisper, it has the power of some fearsomely universal cracks” 
- Clarissa Oon, The Straits Times, Life!, 3 June 2000

This Chord and Others is an accomplished and thoroughly absorbing collection. Each play in this remarkable book tantalises the audience with its provocative and unique style. The plays in this collection are Be, In the Centre, Right in the Core, There is No New Thing Under the Sun, Rosnah, Top of the World and This Chord and Others. Haresh Sharma invites us to enter the minds and lives of a range of startling characters: Susan, who is plagued with grief at the loss of her daughter; Jen, who is a manifestation of modern self-interest; Rosnah, balancing cultural priorities. These are just a few of Sharma’s powerful creations, through whom he addresses issues such as grief, racial tension, alienation and avarice.

The Necessary Pages is a quarterly publication that gives readers a better insight into the company, and provides updates on new productions and events. 

The Necessary Pages is a quarterly publication that gives readers a better insight into the company, and provides updates on new productions and events.