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The Necessary Stage’s (TNS) developmental platform, The Orange Production, is back for a second instalment.  For 2019, two brand new full-length works will be featured: We Were So Hopeful Then, written by up-and-coming theatre practitioner Ellison Tan Yuyang and directed by Alvin Tan, and Acting Mad, with text by Haresh Sharma and recent School of the Arts graduates Harris Albar and Maryam Noorhimli, and directed by Sharma.

Other creative personnel involved include Lighting Designer for both productions Stella Cheung, Dramaturg Melissa Lim and Multimedia Designer Yusri Sapari, the latter two for We Were So Hopeful Then.

Interestingly, both works within 2019’s The Orange Production cast the spotlight on issues within the theatre industry that are not often discussed.

We Were So Hopeful Then is set in 2025 during a fictitious Singapore Theatre Icon Awards, which aims to pay tribute to industry personnel that remain backstage and are not adequately acknowledged. It seeks to ask how much we care about invisibility in our work environment, as well as implicit biases entrenched in public accolades. The play features Henrik Cheng, Myra Loke, Sindhura Kalidas and Zaaki Nasir.

Acting Mad looks at mental illness and stigma within the theatre industry, and specifically for actors, and explores whether theatre-making can serve as support for these individuals. The work is based on verbatim texts of interviews done with local actors who have experienced or are experiencing mental health issues. The play features Al-Matin Yatim, Andre Chong, Karen Tan and Masturah Oli.

There is no past without colonisation,

and there is no future without it.

 

As we commemorate the bicentennial of the founding of Singapore, let us take a moment to express our gratitude to our founding father/s for their foresight in transforming Singapore from a small fishing village to a global metropolis. We are civilised!

 

Let's marvel at how, all over the world, our land has been plundered, our laws kept archaic and our freedoms curtailed by those in power. Let us honour our pursuit of economic success and excess [nothing less will do], as we continue to colonise today—through money, discrimination and land conquests, even in space. We are civilised!

 

Because after all, through colonisation, we are civilised! We are also schooled and silenced.

 

Written by Haresh Sharma and directed by Alvin Tan, Civilised by The Necessary Stage is a groundbreaking new work that takes you on a wild ride through the complications and violence of colonisation past, present and future.

 

Featuring:

Edith Podesta

Ghafir Akbar

Koh Wan Ching

Lian Sutton

and Siti Khalijah Zainal

 

Set Design by Vincent Lim

Lighting Design by Adrian Tan

Costume Design by Max Tan & Yuan Zhiying of MAX.TAN

Multimedia Design by He Shuming

 

 

15 – 18 & 22 – 25 May 2019, 8pm

18 – 19 & 25 – 26 May 2019, 3pm

 

at The Necessary Stage Black Box

The Necessary Stage’s Theatre for Seniors

presents

IT TAKES ALL KINDS

 

What is your recipe for a successful family?

What does it take for us to work through conflicts together? Or will the ties that bind come undone when times are hard—or when we bid our final goodbyes?

The Necessary Stage’s Theatre for Seniors celebrates its 10th anniversary with It Takes All Kinds, a heartwarming performance about love in our families. Developed in collaboration with Setagaya Public Theatre from Tokyo, the devised production is created by our seniors and residents through workshops exploring their real-life experiences and perspectives.

It takes all kinds of ingredients to make a winning recipe of familial love. We invite you to savour ours, and hope to discover yours as well at the theatre.

“Off Centre marks a new maturity in Singapore Theatre, addressing an audience prepared to be challenged.”
—Hannah Pandian, The Straits Times Life

“... a major triumph.”
—Mayo Martin, TODAY Online

The Necessary Stage’s critically acclaimed play, Off Centre, returns 26 years after its premiere in 1993. Written by Haresh Sharma and directed by Alvin Tan, Off Centre is a landmark play in the history of Singapore theatre, best remembered for presenting an honest and unflinching look at mental illness and the stigma surrounding it.

Off Centre follows the unlikely friendship between Saloma and Vinod, and traces their journeys as they deal with their personal conflicts as well as social prejudices against mental health conditions.

Selected in 2007 by the Ministry of Education as the first Singaporean play to be offered as a GCE 'O' and ‘N’ Level literature text, Off Centre is once again back on the syllabus since 2018.

This brand new staging features Abdulattif Abdullah and Sakinah Dollah, who will reprise their original roles as Vinod and Saloma respectively, as well as Aidli Mosbit as Mak.

“It’s impossible to not be astounded by the timelessness and thrust of Haresh Sharma’s Off Centre.”
—Naeem Kapadia, Crystalwords