Every other month, we open our inboxes for script submissions from playwrights seeking dramaturgical support for their work. From a shortlist, one script will receive a facilitated, closed-door table read with professionals present, and two will receive one-on-one dramaturgy sessions with our Writer in Residence. This is not a presentation opportunity, but an offer of considered dramaturgical support for scripts in the drafting process. Each Residency call seeks:

We currently only accept plays in English. Plays written in other languages, or in multiple languages, must come with translations.

We prioritise completed drafts of full length plays (~at least 60 minutes).

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYNew Scripts Residency Sep 2022

Every other month, the New Scripts Residency provides three scripts with considered dramaturgical support in the form of either a facilitated table read or one-on-one dramaturgy sessions with our Writer in Residence. If you have a script that you want to take forward to the next draft, this residency is ideal for you. Playwrights who submit their script(s) for this cycle must be able to attend the Table Read in person, scheduled for Monday 26 September 2022.

Start: September 2022

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYLatch by Samantha Chia

Young police investigator Kim has been assigned to her first station. She thought that criminals and suspects were her biggest concerns but soon realizes there are other things she has to protect herself against.

Start: September 2021

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYcoming back by Chuah Weiqi

A young woman revisits her childhood home and realises she has lost all emotional connection with her hometown. As she struggles to rebuild connections with an old friend, a surreal encounter with a ghostly young girl takes her on a trip down memory lane, where she finds herself faced with confronting her past and redefining what “home” means to her.

Start: September 2021

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYLovers Text Lovers by Ang Kia Yee

Lovers Text Lovers is an experimental play about the movement of love and desire within the entanglements of identity, pop culture and language. Taking the relationship of two lovers—a Singaporean Chinese postdoctoral researcher and a white British Tsinghua University professor of Comparative Literature—as a point of departure, Lovers Text Lovers asks: How much of our desires and relationships are predetermined? How can we transcend or re-interpret these narratives? Who else can we be(come) t

Start: September 2021

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYThe National Curriculum by Ahmad Musta'ain

The play looks at the stressors and strains of the lives of teachers and students who find themselves marginalized by an education system that was supposed to support and develop them. For most LGBTQIA+ teachers whose entire careers are spent in school, having to mask their identities while having to teach their students to discover, accept and love their true selves is ironic and potentially counterproductive to their goals in education. What can they do, or what has to be done to ensure that they get the

Start: September 2021

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYFrayed Ends by Michelle Tan

Frayed Ends charts how the lives of a close circle of friends carry on after one of them decides to end her own life. In the face of a loss that is both immeasurable and sudden, they struggle with the frustrating limits of being human, of trying (and failing) to be there for the ones they love, and with finding some kind of hope even in the inevitability of these failures. Frayed Ends was developed under Centre 42's Guest Room (now known as the New Scripts Residency). Read about Guest

Start: 20 January 2020

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYThe Regiment by Isabella Chiam

“Ta’at Setia” – Loyal and True These were the words that the brave soldiers of the Malay Regiment lived and died by. Up until the end, they fought tooth and nail to keep Singapore from falling to the Japanese invaders. And they did, to their dying breath. How did they come to this? Did they ever think to run? What were they fighting for? In The Regiment, we try to piece together the story of a few recruits in the Malay Regiment, in the years leading up to the Fall of Singapore in 1942. We wi

Start: 17 November 2019

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYThe Chronicles Of Xiao Ming by Miriam Cheong

It’s been day 4XX since graduating school and this girl still hasn’t used a chengyu in her life. Or much Chinese at all. However, years later, perhaps it’s finally time to try. The Chronicles of Xiao Ming is a recollection of one individual’s journey through Singapore’s Chinese Language syllabus, documenting the tribulations faced along the way. From a primary school child knowing barely five words in Chinese to an adult struggling to order food, The Chronicles of Xiao Ming is

Start: 7 August 2019

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYFirst Act(s), Part 4

First Act(s) is a 4-part series featuring 8 plays-in-progress from a group of budding playwrights brought together by fate. These plays were born at the ‘Playwriting Workshop with Haresh Sharma’ (organised by the National Library Board, September – October 2018), and have now been taken to their next developmental step of rewrites and readings. The plays will be publicly read to an invited audience for the first time, over 4 separate Guest Room sessions from March to July 2019: Part 1, March 2019

Start: 20 July 2019

NEW SCRIPTS RESIDENCYRumah Dayak by Nessa Anwar

A night-hour safehouse for the troubled youths, dropouts, runaways and delinquents of the Malay community is run by a pair of ex-offenders. When external intervention looms, it will take all of their collective efforts to keep the walls of their home up, or risk tearing them all down. Rumah Dayak is a look into the struggle to guard a home, when the home is built out of circumstances borne from poverty, deprivation and abuse. Performed in Malay and English, with English surtitles. Rumah Daya

Start: 6 July 2019

FAQ

Who is this platform for?

This platform is for playwrights of any experience level who would like to receive considered, professional feedback on their scripts.

What kind of scripts can I submit?

We accept completed drafts of full length plays (at least ~ 60 minutes) in English, or in other languages with translations provided in English.

Future editions of the New Scripts Residency may specifically call for scripts in Malay, Tamil, or Chinese. At this time, we are not accepting books for musicals, screenplays, or libretti.

We are not accepting straight adaptations of other work (e.g. novels, films), but will accept adaptations with a clear creative, re-inventive, and/or radical approach.

How do you decide the suitability of the application?

A team of readers, made up of directors, playwrights, and dramaturgs, will consider the submissions. Based on the quality of the script and the writer’s needs as expressed in the application form, they will then recommend either a table read or one-on-one dramaturgy sessions with our Writer in Residence. This programme prioritises writer development over polish, and aims to get the writer excited to work on the next draft of their script, with a clearer sense of where to go

What happens after my submission?

Because of our current reading capacity, we will only consider the first six eligible scripts that come into our inbox at closing time. These six scripts will be handed over to the team of readers, who will then read and deliberate on which three scripts will go on to the next stage.

The table read will be organised by Centre 42, who will invite actors, writers, directors, and dramaturgs from a pool of artists we have been working closely with on this programme.

The scripts receiving one-on-one dramaturgy will be scheduled in directly with our Writer in Residence, who will read the scripts and provide detailed feedback in discussion with the writer.

Scripts that were not shortlisted will receive written feedback from the reading team and writers are welcome to submit subsequent drafts for future iterations of the New Scripts Residency.

Is this a presentation opportunity? Will shortlisted scripts be staged for an audience or receive a public reading?

No. This is a revised version of the previous New Scripts Residency, which was a short-term incubation and presentation platform. In this iteration, the focus is on detailed, discussion-based dramaturgical support. The table read is a closed-door event, the purpose of which is for the play to be heard and appraised in a discussion facilitated by a writer, director, or dramaturg.

How often does this residency take place?

This Residency takes place every other month. The Open Call for script submissions is announced a month before the scheduled dramaturgy sessions. The submissions box will be open for 1 week, and closes once it receives the first six scripts.

How many plays can I submit? How often can I re-apply?

We only accept one play per writer each cycle.

If you had submitted multiple plays in one cycle, only the 1st submission will be considered as eligible.

If you did not make the cut-off time, you are welcome to apply again for the next cycle.

If your submission was eligible but not shortlisted for either the Table Read or 1-on-1 consultations, you are welcome to apply again with a subsequent draft.

If your play has received dramaturgical support in one cycle, we cannot support it again in subsequent cycles of the New Scripts Residency.

New Scripts Residency

A regular offer of dramaturgical support for new scripts through a table read or individual consultation sessions

Type of work supported

FAQ

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