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It’s International Friendship Day at MPSS but friendship seems to be the last thing on the students’ minds.While the foreign students Adi, Anton and Liqin are questioning what to showcase at their booths and why there isn’t one for the local students, the Drama Club boys are unhappy about them not putting any effort towards the much-anticipated Singapore Youth Festival (SYF).Meanwhile, Carys is facing pressure at home for losing her spot as the school’s top Maths student.Will she lose her top spot to an international scholar?Will the Drama Club boys get the foreigners to join in the chorus?Will Adi get the booth of his choice?Written by Cultural Medallion recipient Haresh Sharma and directed by TNS' Associate Artist Lim Shien Hian, International Friendship Day promises an invigorating and engaging interactive theatre experience for youths to explore and understand cross-cultural differences.International Friendship Day was first commissioned by Singapore Kindness Movement in 2015 and was restaged as part of Peer Pleasure 2016 and as an online interactive experience under Esplanade’s Feed Your Imagination 2021.It is supported by the National Arts Council as part of the NAC School Arts Excursion Programme.

Adrian, a young teacher, faces a life-altering revelation when his homosexuality and relationship with Ben, an Asian-American documentary filmmaker, come to light. This disclosure sends ripples through the family, testing their attachments to societal norms and roles. The presence of the cheeky Peranakan matriarch adds depth and humour to this captivating two-act play set in Singapore and New York.Alvin Tan’s debut play weaves a compelling tale of love, acceptance, and family dynamics against the backdrop of ancestral worship. As the characters navigate their individual struggles, ANAK highlights the importance of ancestors in shaping their paths.For SIFA 2024, The Necessary Stage has opted for an innovative presentation of ANAK. During the performance, the actors will be improvising the scenes of the play based on a narrative structure. In this way, the actors will fully own their characters, instead of just presenting a staged reading. Such an approach reflects The Necessary Stage’s devising methodology and spirit of theatrical exploration.

Utama, a mysterious Tiger, runs a bar in limbo that seems to attract an odd mix of patrons.Guan Yin's life keeps ending prematurely and she seems eternally subscribed to this tragic loop of death and rebirth. Shimizu's memory is failing him as he grapples with the loss of his wife and tries to keep up with his AI (Artificial Intelligence) caretaker.Sindhu is struggling to regain a semblance of a "boring" life since experiencing an earthquake over video conference that resurfaces past trauma.John tries to find some control in his otherwise uncontrollable life as a broadcast journalist but is stuck in a hotel room.Written by A Yagnya and co-directed with Alvin Tan, Hi, Can You Hear Me? follows various characters whose normalcies have been fractured due to events and experiences beyond their control.How and why do their paths cross?When everything that was going smoothly gets disrupted, what is there left to cling to?

Through tender storytelling, Oo-woo unravels the intricate web of caring for an elderly family member. As the story unfolds, deep secrets and hidden desires come to light, casting doubt on the strength of familial bonds. When their cherished family bird mysteriously disappears, a journey of unsettling discoveries begins, challenging the characters' understanding of duty and love.Written by Raimi Safari, directed by Mohd Fared Jainal, and starring Dalifah Shahril, Farah Lola, Isabella Chiam and Yazid Jalil, Oo-woo delves into the haunting realm of dementia, blurring the lines between reality and illusion. A single bird brings into question the sacrifices and choices we make when faced with the unknown.Oo-woo was developed at The Necessary Stage’s Playwrights’ Cove 2022 under the mentorship of Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma.

Being a woman is tough. Being an Indian woman is even tougher. We must be independent, but not too independent that we tarnish the family name. We must be strong enough to withstand the constant scrutiny that our bodies, minds and personalities are subject to. We’re too dark, too short, too thin, too educated, too loud, too much. Our friends still ask us if we speak ‘Indian’. Or worse, they assume we are Indian just because we are a certain shade of brown.  Written by The Necessary Stage’s Associate Artist Sindhura Kalidas, Happy Indian Women is a verbatim theatre production that questions the assumptions we make about the diverse South Asian diaspora in Singapore. Based on interviews with 20 women and non-binary people from various backgrounds, the play interweaves text, sound and multimedia to celebrate their honest and tender stories about faith, friendship and family.  

When Eric Lim returns home after studying abroad, he marries his long-time sweetheart and neighbour Shalini Mulchand. But a lot can happen in three years—especially when two families are united by love but divided by their pain.

First staged in 1994 as part of the Singapore Festival of Arts, Three Years in the Life and Death of Land is about the Lims, the Mulchands, a ghost, a cat and three mosquitoes—one big family, trying hard to be happy.