The Past is Present
It's been on the forefront of everyone's minds this year - the 60th anniversary of Singapore's independence, marking another decade of growth and evolution for our little island. Befitting the year-long SG60 festivities, many theatre productions this year have explored and celebrated our history from various angles. We've seen shows inspired by key historical events and unique aspects of local culture, as well as restagings and adaptations of canonical theatre classics that keenly demonstrate how the past is indeed, present.
Here at Centre 42, we're wrapping up the year with yet another edition of our Year in Review and Singapore Theatre timeline projects. For nine years running, we've been tracking all the theatre productions that have been staged over the course of a calendar year, and offering analyses of the trends we’ve gathered from the data. By comparing the statistics collected year on year, we can see how our theatre ecosystem shifts and changes (or not).
Keep reading to find out more - for now, we'll begin with an overview of Singapore theatre in 2025!
The scene has staged a total of 156 shows in 2025:
- All 156 shows were in-person performances, marking the first year since 2019 where we did not have any digital or hybrid performances.
- Alongside these 156 shows, we had 1 production which was cancelled before it could be staged (Homepar by Mitchell Fang and Wild Rice). This marks the first year since 2022 where we had a theatre production which was cancelled.
View this year's interactive timeline below! Click on the 'Full Screen' button in the embedded timeline for the best viewing experience; click and drag to explore different months of the year, and click on each individual production to find out more about it! Shows that were presented as part of a festival are grouped together under a blue festival heading and located in the bottom half of the timeline.
Unable to view the interactive timeline? Check out the static versions below, available as an image and a PDF!
Singapore Theatre in 2025
Statistics and Trends
156 theatre productions were successfully staged in 2025, just one more compared to last year. That's equivalent to one theatre production being staged every two days!
This number continues a gradual rising trend we’ve observed since 2022. This was a challenging year for the theatre community as well as the country as a whole - when we cautiously stepped out of the COVID-19 pandemic and grappled with a slow and stumbling return to the 'normal' state of things that we've experienced since then. It remains to be seen if this increase will continue in the coming years, or if we'll settle into this comfortable average.
We've also observed another slow increase that continues in 2025 - more and more 'non-original works' being staged. Not sure what that means? Here are some definitions to better understand the data that we've presented in the graph below:
- 'New work' refers to works that have been newly created and have not been publicly read or staged before. Examples from 2025 include Partial Eclipse of the Heart by The Theatre Practice and A Thousand Stitches by Kaylene Tan and Alan Oei.
- 'Non-original work' refers to works that have been publicly read or staged by a different organisation or artist (not the organisation or artist presenting it in 2025). Examples from 2025 include Scenes From the Climate Era by Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay and Normal by NAFA StageWorks.
- 'Past work (restaging/adaptation)' refers to works that were previously created by the organisation or artist who has decided to restage or adapt the work, and re-present it in 2025. Examples from 2025 include See You, Anniversary by Nine Years Theatre and SALINA by Teater Kami.
The number of non-original works being staged has increased annually for the past six years. In 2025, 31 out of 156 productions were non-original works - that's almost twenty percent of all productions staged this year!
It seems that an interest in restagings and adaptations of past work is also picking back up. Re-presenting past work was very popular in 2020 and 2021 - this was born out of the limitations the theatre industry faced during the pandemic, when circuit breakers prevented us from staging live performances. Instead, many theatre companies and practitioners opted to stream digital recordings of past performances for audiences to watch from the comfort of their homes. The numbers dipped in 2022 and 2023, with only 18 productions being restagings or adaptations, but they've increased again in the past two years to 28 past works in 2024 and 27 in 2025. Click below to check out the past performances of some of the restagings and adaptations presented this year!
25 productions this year were presented by independent theatre collectives, a slight increase compared to 19 productions in 2023 and 2024. We counted 23 unique collectives, with only two collectives - now:arts and The Winter Players - presenting more than one production in 2025. In addition, another two collectives presented their debut productions this year: zone, staging a work-in-progress presentation of Descendants, and The Runaway Kids, staging an original production titled As With the Wind. It seems that, despite presenting fewer shows on average compared to registered companies, collectives are flourishing and blooming, bringing new works to the local stage.
135 productions this year sold tickets at fixed prices (compared to 17 productions being free to attend, and 4 allowing audiences to pay whatever amount they wished) - and these prices certainly aren't cheap! The average lowest ticket price in 2025 was $32.73 - that’s a 13.4% increase from last year, and a whopping 28.7% increase within the span of five years.
While the percentage increase for the average highest ticket price is less dramatic - a 7.5% increase from $45.25 in 2024 to $48.64 in 2025 - this year marks the most expensive average highest ticket price since we started tracking this data. At the moment, it appears that last year's price decrease was an anomaly, not the rule; ticket prices seem to be increasing alongside the general cost of living in Singapore. With only 10% of productions being free, theatre in 2025 seems to be much less accessible to those who lack the financial means.
In 2024, we were excited to see that 52% of productions offered accessibility options for audiences with diverse needs, including audio description for the visually impaired, sign language interpretation and creative captioning for the hearing impaired, relaxed productions for audiences who might struggle with aspects of the 'regular' performance, and many more. Unfortunately, this upward trend hasn't continued in 2025; only 36% of productions offered accessibility options. To learn more about the possible reasons behind this decrease, and the wider contexts behind the intersections of accessibility, disability, and theatre, we spoke with Grace Lee-Khoo, an applied theatre practitioner and founder of Access Path Productions, which works closely with Deaf and disabled communities.
Says Grace:
Making a theatre production accessible is very challenging, especially if access options are integrated into the work and inform its creative development and artistic presentation, rather than being a functional addition. It needs time and investment and manpower, and teething problems are inevitable. 2024 was an exciting year, and the increase says to me that people were interested in and willing to try building access options into their productions. But after that, maybe they found it hard to sustain, especially if they didn’t have a steady stream of resources to maintain the systems that are necessary to make these access options work. What we really need is more awareness, more advocacy, more resources, that will help companies work through the teething problems and integrate accessibility into their workflow.
We’ve seen a slight rise in the number of productions that fall under the category of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA), which are created specifically for children and youths - 15% of productions in 2024 were TYA, compared to 22% of productions in 2025. We spoke to Luanne Poh, Executive Director of The Artground, which engages children and their families with the arts, about the development of TYA in Singapore and the value of these TYA productions:
There’s been increasing interest in the past few years, not just in developing local TYA productions, but in pushing the boundaries of what these productions can be and who they can reach. Imaginativeness and openness has allowed us to create works that engage with very young children, five years old and below, making the arts accessible to them. When TYA productions are appropriately designed for children, when they're really made with them in mind, they can be very empowering. When parents have a positive artistic experience with their children and discover that the theatre can be a welcoming space for families, they are then willing to keep coming back, to keep engaging their children in theatre and the arts, even as they grow older and their interests start to change.
This year, we've started tracking a new statistic - the number of productions that engage a dramaturg in the process!
The importance of dramaturgy in the theatre ecosystem is something Centre 42 has been exploring, discussing, and sharing about for several years, through various programmes and workshops as well as our involvement in the Asian Dramaturgs' Network. The dramaturg can play a very important role in the development of theatrical work, from offering an outside perspective on directorial choices, to conducting research alongside playwrights crafting a new work, to acting as a first audience in the rehearsal room, and more.
Over the past decade, we’ve seen more local practitioners becoming aware of dramaturgy, engaging dramaturgs in their creative processes, and even practicing as dramaturgs themselves. We’re keen to see how this awareness and interest develops over time. Of the 156 productions in 2025, only 18 productions featured a dramaturg in their list of credits, but we certainly hope to see that number grow!
To that end, Centre 42 continues to run various dramaturgy-related programmes that raise more awareness of dramaturgy in the theatre ecosystem, help both aspiring and established dramaturgs develop their skills, and bridge the gap between dramaturgs and practitioners. Click below to find out more about these programmes!
Another statistic we’ll be tracking from 2025 onwards is the number of productions that are 'Culture Pass-eligible' - where audiences can use their Culture Pass credits to offset ticket purchases. The SG Culture Pass was launched on 1 September 2025 as part of SG60 celebrations. This state-led initiative provides all Singaporean citizens with $100 worth of credits that can be spent on eligible arts and heritage activities, and is intended to "make it easier for Singaporeans to discover, engage with, and enjoy a wide range of cultural experiences".
47 theatre productions were staged during and/or after 1 September. Of these productions, 31 were presented by organisations and practitioners which fulfilled the eligibility criteria laid out by the SG Culture Pass initiative, allowing audiences to use their credits to offset ticket purchases to these productions.
While it's still early days for the SG Culture Pass, we certainly look forward to watching how the credits are used on theatre productions and how the initiative impacts audience engagement and buying behaviour in the long run. In the meantime, we spoke to representatives from two theatre companies which presented Culture Pass-eligible productions to hear their observations on the initiative so far:
It's my understanding from the SISTIC data that about 70% of the audiences who have attended our [Culture Pass-eligible] productions are not necessarily regular goers… there were definitely people who hadn't been to an SRT show before who came. We still need more data to understand if this is one-off or if it plants the seeds for long-term engagement with the arts, but it's amazing that, with the rise in cost of living, the government is putting this kind of money into the pockets of arts consumers. - Charlotte Nors (Managing Director of Singapore Repertory Theatre)
We definitely saw a lot more participation from people who otherwise wouldn't enter the theatre. It's not easy to convince someone with little theatre experience to pay $80 or $90 for a ticket, and the Culture Pass helped us get past that barrier. If the initiative is sustained, hopefully the amount of credits disbursed will keep pace with the rising prices of theatre tickets… There is a concern that the process [of using Culture Pass credits] is less intuitive for groups of people who aren't as familiar with the digital sphere, such as the elderly, and I wonder if the difficulty might have put off some people who would otherwise be interested in attending. - Lekheraj Sekhar (Ticketing Manager at Wild Rice)
The remaining 16 out of 47 productions were not Culture Pass-eligible, meaning audiences could not use their credits to purchase tickets. A quick study of these productions helps us identify some likely reasons for their ineligibility:
- Credits can only be used on productions presented by organisations or practitioners who have experience organising arts activities over the past three years. Productions presented by new and young collectives would be ineligible. One example is As With the Wind, presented by The Runaway Kids, a collective which debuted in 2025.
- Credits can only be used via specific ticketing partners, such as SISTIC, BookMyShow, and GlobalTix. Productions presented by organisations and practitioners who choose to use a different ticketing platform would be ineligible. One example is 94:05 by Irfan Kasban, Riduan Zailani, Deanna Dzulkifli, and Umi Ismail, which opted for audience members to fill in a Google Form to purchase their tickets.
- Credits cannot be used on productions presented under the auspices of an educational institution, whether public or private. Productions presented by arts institutions would be ineligible. One example is Othello by the Intercultural Theatre Institute.
Our SG60 celebrations would also not be complete without the many productions which placed a spotlight on various aspects of Singapore’s history and culture - the legends told of Temasek, tales of terror and survival during World War II, the struggles faced by overlooked minority communities, and more. Click below to find out more about the diverse range of 2025 productions which celebrate SG60 and look back on our history!
Of course, when we celebrate sixty years of nationhood, we also celebrate the winding and complex journey that Singapore has taken through these sixty years and beyond. We've come a long way from our very first 'truly Singaporean' play (Mimi Fan by veteran playwright Lim Chor Pee), to the 'golden age' in the 1980s when some of our most iconic plays and musicals were written (Beauty World and Emily of Emerald Hill, anyone?), all the way to our thriving ecosystem in the present day. Our theatre history is very much part of the Singapore story too - scroll down to dive into a selection of essays where you can learn more about Singapore theatre through the decades!
We hope you enjoyed viewing the statistics and trends for Singapore Theatre in 2025 - view more infographics via this link!
FAQ
Acknowledgments
RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
Adelyn Tan
Cheng Xin Rui
Yi Xuan Lock
DESIGN & LAYOUT
Adelyn Tan
Meenalochani Subramanian
DATA VISUALISATION TOOLS
Timegraphics
Canva
SPECIAL THANKS
Charlotte Nors
Grace Lee-Khoo
Lekheraj Sekhar
Luanne Poh
Published: 29 December 2025