The Necessary Stage
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The Necessary Stage is a non-profit theatre company with charity status in Singapore. Formed in 1987 by current Artistic Director Alvin Tan, The Necessary Stage has been identified as one of six Major Arts Companies by the National Arts Council. The company is also the organiser and curator of the annual M1 Singapore Fringe Festival.
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[edit] Main Season
For its main season, The Necessary Stage produces an average of four plays a year at its Black Box and at other venues. These include plays for the Singapore Arts Festival. The plays are original, mostly devised pieces created in a collaborative process that is based on research, improvisation before scripting, and input from all members of the production. This process has produced many important works which were not only popular successes but also critically acclaimed, including:
- Boxing Day: The Tsunami Project (2005),
- Top Or Bottom (2004),
- Sing Song (2004),
- koan (2003),
- BOTE: The Beginning Of the End (2002),
- godeatgod (2002 & 2004),
- Close – in my face (2002),
- ABUSE SUXXX!!! (2001),
- Completely With/Out Character (1999),
- Pillars (1998),
- Rosnah (1995, 1996, 1997 & 2006),
- Off Centre (1994, to be reprised in 2007)
- Still Building (1993),
The Necessary Stage's international collaboration, Separation 40, was produced with Malaysian theatre company Dramalab, and was staged at the Esplanade as part of its Theatre Studio Season, and at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre.
In June 2006, The Necessary Stage presented Mobile, a creative collaboration involving talents from Japan, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, as part of the Singapore Arts Festival. Mobile also toured to Kuala Lumpur following its world premiere in Singapore for a 3-day run at The Actors Studio in Bangsar.
The Necessary Stage's most recent production, Fundamentally Happy, took place at their Black Box in September 2006 and received accolades and warm responses from the audience. The production was also reprised as part of the 2007 edition of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival.
[edit] International work
The Necessary Stage is committed to international exchange and networking between Singapore and other countries. Such exchange is done through staging the company's plays abroad, inviting foreign works to be presented by the company in Singapore, as well as through dialogues, workshops and training opportunities. To date, the company has performed in Berlin, Birmingham, Busan, Cairo, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Macau, Melbourne, New Delhi, Seoul, Sibiu, Sziget and Taipei. Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma also participated in a collaboration among Southeast Asian theatres, spearheaded by Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo, Japan, which culminated in a production in 2005.
[edit] Theatre For Youth and Community
The Theatre for Youth branch was set up in 1992 and re-named Theatre For Youth and Community (TFYC) in 2001. TFYC's principal interest is in theatre work with and for young people and different communities in Singapore. This includes presenting short plays during school assemblies, interactive Theatre-In-Education programmes, workshops, and process-based drama programmes that focus on personal development. Since 1992, TFYC has performed to more than 800,000 students, piloted drama programmes for school curriculum, and worked with numerous non-governmental organisations and voluntary welfare organisations. It was also responsible for the successful Marine Parade Theatre Festival (2000), FamFest (2001), The Necessary Community Festival (2001), M1 Youth Connection (1997 – 2003) and M1 Theatre Connect (2004).
[edit] M1 Singapore Fringe Festival
The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is an annual festival of theatre, installation, film, music and forum created and presented by Singaporean and international artists. Based on a different theme every year and curated by The Necessary Stage, the festival aims to bring the best of contemporary, cutting-edge and socially engaged works to the Singapore audience. Unique in Singapore, the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is set to be a creative centre with a twin-purpose of innovation and discussion, a platform for meaningful and provocative art to engage our increasingly connected and complex world.
The theme for the inaugural M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2005 was Art and War, and the theme for M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2006 is Art and Healing, featuring a total of 51 works from 20 countries over a period of 12 days. The festival's theme for 2007 is Art and Disability, and come 2008, the theme will be Art and History.
[edit] Publications
The Necessary Stage has to date produced eight publications. Still Building (1994), published by EPB, is a compilation of three plays by the company’s Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma. Other published work by Haresh include This Chord and Others (1999) – a compilation of six plays published by Minerva, and Off Centre (2000), published by Ethos Books. The Necessary Stage also published PIE to Spoilt (2002), a maiden collection of plays by former Company Playwright Chong Tze Chien, who is now the Company Director of another theatre company in Singapore called The Finger Players. In 1997, the company published 9 Lives – 10 Years of Singapore Theatre, a landmark book and the first of its kind featuring essays on Singapore theatre, commissioned by The Necessary Stage. 2000 saw the company publish a report, Development Through Drama: Towards Providing A Holistic Education for Singapore Schools, with support from the National Arts Council, documenting its pilot developmental drama programme conducted during curriculum time. Ask Not: The Necessary Stage In Singapore Theatre, a collection of essays on examining the social, political, economic and artistic aspects of theatre-making in Singapore from the perspective of The Necessary Stage, was published by Times Editions in 2004. Recently, Off Centre has been selected by the Ministry of Education in Singapore as a literature text for the GCE 'O' and ‘N’ levels syllabi, and has been republished by the company.
[edit] The Triangle Project
The Triangle Project was started in 1992 with the aim of providing opportunities for the less privileged to watch theatre. The Necessary Stage matches donors and charities with the former buying tickets to our productions for the beneficiaries. This scheme has proven to be very successful and numerous beneficiaries of Voluntary Welfare Organisations have experienced theatre as a result.
