Ask Not

Can Singapore - a nation driven by the politics of economic development - see the Arts as more than just cultural enterprise contributing to the country's GDP? With the new focus on theatre as business, what is the impact on socially-engaged and experimental theatre?

This volume of commentaries and critical essays, contributed by renowned practitioners and critics, tracks the achievements of social theatre in the past two decades through a detailed study of The Necessary Stage. Dealing with censorship, cultural bureaucracy, and evolving arts policies, they propose alternatives to the prevailing official discourse, and call for a re-thinking of art and culture as an enterprise that encompasses both social conscience and profitability.