The Necessary Stage

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.

Three Years in the Life and Death of Land (2023)

Cast

Wild Rice

A hotel in Singapore is opened at the turn of the century, when the island is still a jewel in the crown of the British Empire. Each day, new faces appear and swiftly disappear – guests and staff alike.&nbsp;Every ten years, we check in to meet the hotel’s residents: Indian mutineers, Cantonese nannies, Malay film stars, Japanese soldiers, transsexual sex workers, wedding guests, suspected terrorists, and more. They live out the pivotal moments in their personal lives, as empires die and new ones are born f

HOTEL (2023)

Singapore Repertory Theatre

The critically acclaimed Shakespeare in the Park returns with the popular comedy,&nbsp;A Midsummer Night's Dream&nbsp;– a romantic comedy filled with mischief and magic.Enjoy your picnic under the night sky as the industrial kingdom of Athenia transforms into an enchanted dreamworld of moonlit water and fairyland mayhem.'The course of true love never did run smooth …'The Fairy King and Queen are at war, four young lovers have eloped to the forest, and a group of tradesmen are rehearsing a play. But it is Mi

A Midsummer Night's Dream (2023)

In a comfortable middle-class home, a family sits down to a celebratory dinner. But their evening is cut short by the unexpected arrival of an Inspector. He brings news of the tragic death of a young woman.&nbsp;As the Inspector investigates, tensions escalate – threatening to shatter the very foundations on which entire lives and identities have been built. What crime has been committed here? Who is guilty? And who isn’t?&nbsp;Written with startling prescience by J.B. Priestley in 1945, An Inspector Calls 

An Inspector Calls (2023)

Cake Theatrical Productions

Grab a picnic mat and join us for an evening of multi-sensorial performance by contemporary sound artists and performers. Presented by Cake Theatrical Productions, Look to the Heavens in Three Parts is a dream-like meditation on creation, spirituality, and being human.

Look to the Heavens in Three Parts (2023)

Narrator

Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay

A contemporary reimagining of the Indian epic tale&nbsp;The&nbsp;Mahabharata&nbsp;that resonates with the current day.The Pandavas and the Kauravas—two groups of cousins—struggle for political power and the claim to the dynastic succession to the throne of the Hastinapura, an Indian kingdom. The confrontation climaxes with an 18-day Kurukshetra War in which even the gods are involved. Unimaginable death and destruction ensue, and all on the battlefield are forced to face up to their&nbsp;dharma—their duty a

Kingdoms Apart (2022)

Mental illness does not discriminate. Although there is more access to information, many still suffer silently or face stigma when they come out with their illness. What is this experience like for actors in Singapore? Are they expected to just deal with their mental health issues because they are seen as ‘tortured artists’ and ‘so full of drama’?&nbsp;In 2019, as part of The Necessary Stage's developmental platform The Orange Production, the company presented&nbsp;Acting Mad, a verbatim play based on inter

Acting Mad (2022)

Performer

This interactive theatrical experience will feature excerpts of&nbsp;Off Centre&nbsp;that traces the friendships that the protagonist, Vinod, forges—one with Charlie, his ex-classmate from Junior College, and another with Saloma, who—like Vinod—struggles with a mental health condition.

Can Vinod draw support from his friends, in the face of social prejudices against those suffering from mental illnesses? Will their friendships be able to withstand the personal conflicts that each of them experience?

O

Off Centre (2020)

Actor

Facilitator

Which is more important?
Poetic Truths or Pure Facts?

Jim Fingal is a fresh-out-of-Harvard fact checker for a prominent but sinking New York magazine. John D’Agata is a talented writer with a transcendent essay about the suicide of a teenage boy –&nbsp;an essay that could save the magazine from collapse. When Jim is assigned to fact check D’Agata’s essay, the two come head to head in a comedic yet gripping battle over facts versus truth.


The Lifespan of a Fact (2020)

As the Singapore Bicentennial is celebrated, six people form a group called Raffles Must Fall to examine our country's colonial legacy. Scenes from the past are re-enacted to better understand the nightmare of subjugation... and the dream of self determination.&nbsp;

Drawing upon a wealth of historical documentation, including speeches, newspaper articles and songs, the play confronts us with questions about how colonial structures still shape the society we live in today. Why celebrate the beginning of 

Merdeka (2019)

There is no past without colonisation,&nbsp;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 economi

Civilised (2019)

Urban legend has it that Sophocles, the Granddaddy of Tragedy, died from holding his breath while reciting a particularly long line from Antigone, the story of a young woman from Thebes, who had the cheek to defy her uncle-ruler Creon to bury her brother Polyneices. Receiving a proper burial was a big deal then. The deceased without an appropriate send-off would be denied entry into the Underworld and forced to roam the shores of River Styx as a restless ghost forever. Antigone wasn’t about to let that happ

Rubber Girl on the loose (2019)

A wickedly dark comedy based on a myth surrounding the Taj Mahal that "nothing so beautiful shall ever be built again".

Two long-term friends, Humayun and Babur stand guard at the Taj Mahal hours before it is to be unveiled at dawn. Among the Sacred Oaths of the Mughal Imperial Guards, they are forbidden to look at the monument, speak or lower their swords.

The play reaches a turning point as the guards are ordered to do the unimaginable and their friendship is tested to its limits.


Guards at the Taj (2018)

Temple sees the invention of a mythological universe where all the quarters of the world are at odds. A sports hall, once the diplomatic meeting arena of the now opposing sides, stands desolate.

7 people, assailed, stand at the entrance of the great hall. Quickly, they enter and bolt the doors. Some nights they hear pounding on the doors but they keep very still and do nothing. Within the inner sanctum, they create their own rules, find their own order. They wait.

One day, they awake to find the doors

Temple (2018)

Inspired by images of the G20 and NATO summits, this production sees Shakespeare's political thriller brought to life against a backdrop of modern-day international relations and global current affairs.

Ambition, power, and greed collide as the leaders of the R.O.M.E. 7 countries gather for a summit. It's time for them to decide who their allies really are. Trouble brews as the weather grows disturbingly ominous, and plots to assassinate the ever-ambitious Caesar are hatched. Are Caesar's conspirators tr

Julius Caesar (2018)

A foreigner from an ancient civilization, Medea becomes the perpetual outsider in a city defined by self-proclaimed civility and rule of law. When her husband deserts her to marry the daughter of the city’s Premiere, she is left utterly displaced. Facing imminent exile with nothing save the skin on her back, she redirects her anguish into vengeance, punishes her enemies and horrifies the populace by spilling the blood of her own children on their very ground.

One of the most fascinating mythological figu

Medea (2017)

Over three decades, The Necessary Stage and actors-collaborators who have been partners in the making of the company's devised plays have revealed to us over and over again - in profound, heartbreaking and funny ways - what it means to 'be' in Singapore.&nbsp;

Vinod | Radha Krishnan | Eric Sim Guan Yeow&nbsp;| Noorhayati Yusof&nbsp;| Sergeant Mok&nbsp;| Jali bin Mohd Fariz&nbsp;| Mrs Chua&nbsp;| Mrs Phua Su Lin&nbsp;| Alisha&nbsp;| Melly&nbsp;| Saloma and many more

Away from the buzz of the rehearsal 

Being Haresh Sharma (2017)

First staged in 1990 and subsequently in 2010 to full houses at the Singapore Arts Festival,&nbsp;Those Who Can't, Teach&nbsp;is a Singaporean theatre classic by Cultural Medallion winners Alvin Tan and Haresh Sharma.

Set in a secondary school, the play looks at the madcap lives of teachers and students - with often hilarious results. As the teachers struggle daily to 'nurture and groom', the students prefer to hang out and chill. In the meantime, they all have to deal with the dreaded 'parents'.&nbsp;


Those Who Can't, Teach (2017)

Located in a spacious Upper East Side apartment in New York, Amir has worked hard to achieve the American Dream. With South Asian Muslim roots, he has gone on to become a successful lawyer, marry a beautiful American wife, and own a wardrobe of $600 custom-tailored shirts.

But when Amir hosts a dinner party for his African American colleague and her Jewish art curator husband, the initially pleasant evening erupts into a volatile argument over race, religion and politics in the modern world.

Set in po

Disgraced (2016)

A hotel in Singapore is opened at the turn of the century, when the island is still a jewel in the British Crown. It serves as an exotic pit stop for travelers who wish to explore the glittering expanse of the British Empire.&nbsp;

Each day, new faces appear and swiftly disappear – guests and staff alike. Every ten years, we check into the hotel and meet its residents. As Singapore morphs from British colony to Malaysian state to sovereign nation, its denizens experience profound and dramatic changes. We

Hotel (2016)

Sight Lines Productions

A plane crashes on a deserted island.

The only survivors are a group of schoolboys. By day, it is a tropical paradise of&nbsp;sun and sea; but each night, their dreams are inhabited by a terrifying beast.&nbsp;Thrust into a teenage version of Hunger Games meets Survivor, the boys’ little&nbsp;island adventure quickly become a struggle for survival as superstition and immorality sees the community slide into a darkly sinister world.&nbsp;

It’s not too long before this well-behaved group develops a penc

Lord of the Flies (2016)

Checkpoint Theatre

In this fast and ever-changing world, what is constant? What do we lose in the name of progress? And what happens when we finally let go?

The 1975 Bollywood classic&nbsp;Sholay, with its thrilling exploits of outlaw heroes and high-stakes emotion, provides the backdrop for this profoundly humorous coming-of-age story that chronicles Raghav’s journey from boyhood in the small Indian city of Ambala to the metropolis of Singapore.

From navigating a sense of home to finding where you belong in a globalise

The Good, the Bad and the Sholay (2015)

Hotel (2015)

In a city that’s preparing to market itself as a world-class resort spa, Dr. Thomas Chee&nbsp;discovers that the water supply is riddled with bacteria. He resolves to go public with the information. It’s a decision that pits him against his entire community. Overnight, he finds himself drowning in a storm of protests from the government, media, businesses, and even his family. Suddenly, Dr. Chee is the enemy of the people – the man who insists on telling truths that no one wants to hear.

One of the world

Public Enemy (2015)

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Ghafir Akbar

WORKS DOCUMENTED IN THE ARCHIVE

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