The Shows Will Go On

2021 is supposed to have been the year that kicks off the “new normal”, but we find ourselves still grappling with COVID-19 changing much of what we know. Much of the theatre industry has since embraced the digital space after experimenting with it last year. In charting the activity of Singapore Theatre in 2021, we have seen: 

• 44 digital theatrical performances (these includes performances that were performed live online or pre-recorded for streaming/video on demand)
• 87 live theatrical performances
• 13 hybrid theatrical performances (simultaneously performed live and online)
• 7 cancelled live theatrical performances 
• 7 postponed live theatrical performances (that were staged later on the year)  

For the fifth year running, Centre 42 is documenting Singapore Theatre’s year in a timeline. As with the previous iterations, we rely on the public to help us build a comprehensive picture of the year. If you want to suggest shows to add to the timeline, you can email us at info@centre42.sg.

You can scroll through the timeline below. If you’re experiencing problems viewing the timeline, you may download the PDF here.

This year, the spine of the timeline reflects theatrical performances that were presented in a multitude of ways: live in theatre, pre-recorded, in the digital space, and at times in a hybrid of modes. You’ll be able to track the different phases of COVID-19-related restrictions and their impact on our theatre scene. 

We mark the disruptive periods brought on by the emergence of the Delta variant – Phase 2, Phase 2 (HA), Phase 3 (HA), Phase 2 (HA ver2) – in grey, where pre-event testings (PET) were introduced, and live, unmasked performances were either severely restricted or not allowed. Performances that were originally scheduled then were either cancelled or postponed, and restaged at a later part of this year.

With COVID-19 becoming endemic, Singapore entered the ‘Stabilisation Phase’ in the last quarter of the year. Observe how Singapore’s Theatre picks back up as we try to live and work through it – facing the threats of being shut down or disrupted should cast or production members face health risk warnings, quarantine orders or worse, contract the virus.

It has been a suspenseful 21 months since the fateful Circuit Breaker happened in April 2020, and we’re truly hoping for a smooth recovery. With this timeline, Singapore Theatre in 2021 charts the cautious optimism of the theatre industry and the resilience of our theatre practitioners. As they say, the shows will go on!

Singapore Theatre in 2021 is released in conjunction with Year in Review 2021: Jeng Jeng Jeng, jointly presented by Centre 42, ArtsEquator and Channel NewsTheatre, in collaboration with Artwave Studio.

RESEARCH
KE WEILIANG
NADIA CARR

DESIGN & LAYOUT
CHARLOTTE TAN

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH
CHARLOTTE TAN
DENISE DOLENDO
LEE SHU YU
MA YANLING
NABILAH SAID

2020 was not normal year in Singapore theatre. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all theatres were shut down and live performances were completely barred for seven long months in the middle of this year.

Against the backdrop of the unfolding public health crisis, SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2020 charts the activity of Singapore theatre, specifically:

• 50 live theatrical performances,
• 27 known cancelled live theatrical performances,
• and 104 digital theatrical performances (which could either be archival footage, or digital productions that were performed live online or pre-recorded for streaming).

This is the fourth consecutive time that Centre 42 is documenting Singapore theatre’s year in a timeline. As with the previous iterations, we rely on the public to help us build a comprehensive picture of the year. If you want to suggest shows to add to the timeline, you can leave your suggestion at bit.ly/yir20padlet or contact us at info@centre42.sg.

You can scroll through the timeline below. If you’re experiencing problems viewing the timeline, you may download it here.

The spine of the timeline only reflects live theatrical performances, so you’ll be able to observe when Singapore theatre ground to a halt, and the tentative steps we’ve been taking in the last quarter of the year to bring back live theatre. Cancelled performances float above, faded, like spectres of what could’ve been.

The timeline also illustrates the surge in digital theatre activity as the industry tried to tide over the dark days of Circuit Breaker. You’ll also be able to observe the early attempts made to create theatre in a digital space.

And lastly, the tail end of the timeline visualises a strange in-between period as public safety measures are loosened. Some of Singapore theatre is slowly going back to the stage; but we’re also creating work online, much more than ever before.

2020 brought many challenges for Singapore theatre. With this timeline, SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2020 documents the resilience of the people in Singapore theatre and their remarkable ability to adapt to unprecedented challenges.

SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2020 is released in conjunction with Year in Review 2020, jointly presented by Centre 42 and ArtsEquator on 19 Dec on Zoom.

RESEARCH
KE WEILIANG

DESIGN & LAYOUT
DANIEL TEO

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH
DANIEL TEO
DENISE DOLENDO
LEE SHU YU
MA YANLING
NABILAH SAID

This is our third consecutive year undertaking the mapping exercise to document all the local productions in the calendar year. Back in 2017, we started the timeline because we kept hearing from new audiences that there wasn’t much happening in Singapore theatre. But avid theatre-goers knew otherwise — some weekends were so chock full of theatre that it was impossible to catch them all.

SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2019 maps a whopping 219 local productions, up from 163 in 2018 and 133 in 2017. It is a strong indication that Singapore theatre is producing more as a whole, but the increase could also be due to our mapping methodology. We began with the list of shows offered to our Citizen Reviewers, later cross-referencing that with online arts events listings like Arts Republic and the websites of various performance venues. The surge in this year’s total may be partly because more theatre performances (especially small productions) are documented online.
Starting last year, we’ve attempted to depict the daily level of performance activity going on in the scene. What we’ve come up with is a visualisation of the ebb and flow of Singapore theatre, with productions culminating to a fever pitch on weekends, before dying down on ‘dark’ days (Mondays) when the industry collectively takes a breather.

We’ve also had the unenviable task of deciding what could be considered “Singapore theatre”. We’ve settled on theatrical productions created and/or staged by local theatre-makers, which includes tertiary and arts schools, to independent theatre-makers, to the major established theatre companies.

But as with every year’s timeline, we rely on you to help us fill in the gaps. If you think a local theatre production is missing and should be included, or have any suggestions or spot any errors, please write to us at info@centre42.sg.

SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2019 is supplemented with information from the following Centre 42 programmes:

• THE REPOSITORY is our digital archive of Singapore theatre ephemera. Several productions in the timeline are restagings, adaptations and sequels, and hence related to earlier works. These productions are accompanied by images of Repository artefacts from these prior stagings. View more information about the artefacts at repository.centre42.sg.
• CITIZENS’ REVIEWS is our critical writing programme. Productions in the timeline which have been reviewed by a Citizen Reviewer have been marked with “CR”. Read these published reviews at bit.ly/citizensreviews.
• BASEMENT WORKSHOP is our residency programme which supports the incubation of new theatrical work in our spaces. The shows this year which have developed work in the Basement Workshop are marked with “BW”. To find out more, visit bit.ly/basementworkshop.
• LIVING ROOM is a platform for conversations about Singapore theatre. This exhibition is held in conjunction with In the Living Room: Year in Review 2019. Presented on 8 December 2019, Year in Review 2019 invited the Singapore theatre community to chat about two key trends in 2019 — depictions of sexual violence, and decolonisation.

SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2018: centre42.sg/singapore-theatre-in-2018

SINGAPORE THEATRE IN 2017: centre42.sg/singapore-theatre-in-2017

DESIGN & LAYOUT
DANIEL TEO

RESEARCH
LEE SHU YU
DANIEL TEO
MA YANLING

REPOSITORY ARTEFACTS
DRAMA BOX
NINE YEARS THEATRE
SINGAPORE REPERTORY THEATRE
THEATREWORKS
THE NECESSARY STAGE
THE THEATRE PRACTICE
TOY FACTORY PRODUCTIONS
W!LD RICE

When we created the first timeline last year, it was in response to naysayers claiming nothing much happens in Singapore Theatre. This year’s timeline is likewise a visual up-yours to anyone who thinks our theatre landscape is barren. In 2018, we’ve documented 163 local productions*, from small shows by independent theatremakers all the way up to main season offerings from established companies.

We sourced this year’s shows from what we ourselves had seen and heard about this year, from the reviews our Citizen Reviewers had written about, and from arts websites like Arts Republic. Now and then, we’d come across a production that challenged our ideas of what is “Singapore” and/or “Theatre”. But more often than not, we erred on the side of ‘the-more-the-merrier’ as our definitions stretched.

But we wanted to do more with this year’s timeline. As avid theatre-goers, there were times in the year when we felt that it was a challenge to catch every theatre production that may have been happening over a particular weekend. The 2018 timeline shows concentrations of productions on each day of the year — each bar, representing a day, grows in length the more shows run on that day. With more going on on some days than others, this year’s timeline is a sine wave depicting the ebb and flow of activity in Singapore Theatre.

In addition, we noticed an abundance of festivals this year. In the timeline, a total of 19 festivals for or related to Singapore Theatre have been shaded across their respective periods and labelled.

We also tracked the shows that received some form of support from Centre 42, from productions which rehearsed and/or staged work in our spaces, to works incubated in our Basement Workshop residency programme.

Singapore Theatre in 2018 was exhibited in the Centre 42 Front Courtyard from 4 December 2018 to 31 January 2019.

*As of 26 Feb 2019, eight more productions – suggested by the public – have been added to a timeline, taking it to a total of 171.

DESIGN & LAYOUT BY DANIEL TEO

FEATURED REPOSITORY ARTEFACTS CONTRIBUTED BY CAKE THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS, DRAMA BOX, SINGAPORE REPERTORY THEATRE, TEATER EKAMATRA, THE FINGER PLAYERS, THE NECESSARY STAGE & TOY FACTORY PRODUCTIONS

Curation, design & layout: Daniel Teo
Research & copy: Daniel Teo, Gillian Ong and Gwen Pew
Permission and supporting materials: Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Jeremiah Choy, Margaret Chan, The Necessary Stage, The Theatre Practice, TheatreWorks, and Wild Rice

See a collection of past national arts festival programmes at the Singapore International Festival of Arts’ Four Decades exhibition from 26 April 2018. Photo: Gwen Pew. Programmes used with permission from Arts House Limited.

The Singapore International Festival of Arts 2018 celebrates its four-decade heritage as the premier arts and cultural event in independent Singapore. In this essay, we look back even further in our history to see how our national arts festival came about.

Within the social sciences, festivals are viewed as sites for the production (and consumption) of culture. Waterman (1998) takes this notion a step further by asserting that:

… festivals provide a means whereby groups may attempt to maintain themselves culturally, while presenting opportunities to others to join that group. Festival is also an occasion for outsiders (sponsors, subsidizers) to endeavour to force or lead the group towards an acceptable course for the continuity of its culture. (p.55)

It is through this culture-making frame that we look back at Singapore’s history with the national arts festival. It is arguable that because of its culture-making function, some arts festivals are referred to as ‘cultural festivals’ in historical records. This is why in this essay some events identified as cultural festivals will also be included.

The main consideration for inclusion of these cultural festivals would be if they had been intended to bring together many different cultures, much as arts festivals are events aggregating more than one art form (hence ‘arts’ as opposed to ‘art’). This speaks to the nature of art as both a byproduct of a culture as well as involved in cultural production as well. There was also consideration for the scale of the festival event, which should be cited as somewhat large, although regrettably there is no quantitative indicator for this criteria.

Seeding the idea of a Singapore arts festival

The idea that Singapore needed a city-wide arts event first emerged on public record in 1949, while the island was still part of the British Colony. On July 17, 1949, a Straits Times (ST) article reported that several unidentified cultural organisations were in support of an annual festival of arts, specifically as a money-making venture to raise funds for local arts groups.

The proposed plan was for a festival based on traditional regional music, arts and crafts, drama, and dance; revenue would come mainly from the engagement of a prestigious foreign act such as an Australian symphony orchestra. A supporter of the plan was quoted as saying: “I’m sure we could make profit enough to subsidise our own symphony orchestra, and to make grants to the University of Malaya and cultural organisations in Singapore” (para. 4).

The call for an arts festival emerged again in the news in 1951, from Mr. T. P. F. McNeice, the president of the Singapore City Council, a colonial administrative body in charge of the city’s utilities and infrastructure. At the opening of an arts exhibition, McNeice declared that a Singapore Festival of Arts would be a showcase of the city’s multiracial harmony, putting Singapore in the position to be “a cultural centre not only for South East Asia but for the whole world” (ST, 1951, para. 4).

The idea began gathering traction in the latter half of the ’50s following the formation of the Singapore Arts Council in 1955. In his book Making the invisible visible: Three decades of the Singapore Arts Festival, Purushothaman (2007) writes that the first Singapore Arts Council meeting to mention plans for a festival was held in 1956. Subsequent ST articles in 1957 and 1958 make mention of a pesta or festival in Malay to be organised by a committee appointed by the Singapore Arts Council. The festival was mooted by Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education Mr Lee Siow, who said that it “would be mainly a Singapore affair, its international character coming from the different races in the Colony” (ST, 1957, para. 3).

Singapore Arts Festival 1959: Culture-making for colonial Singapore

The first Singapore Arts Festival took place in April 1959. It was an ambitious undertaking, spanning eight consecutive days in April and across multiple venues, including Victoria Theatre and Memorial Hall, the Cultural Centre, Beatty School, and the Padang, the open lawn in front of City Hall. A ST (1959a) article reporting on Festival listed participating groups such as the Chinese theatre troupes, the Singapore Musical Society and Chamber Ensemble, the Indian Fine Arts Society, amateur theatre group Stage Club, and school clubs. According to Dr. Michael Sullivan, chairman of the Singapore Arts Council: “The festival will mark the biggest concentration of the Arts Singapore has ever know. It will be a people’s festival in the broadest sense of the word” (Morgan, 1959). The festival was supported by a $20,000 grant from the colonial government (ST, 1958).

In the programme guide for the 1959 Festival, Sullivan writes that, through the festival, the Singapore Arts Council aims “to bring the arts of Singapore to the people of Singapore; to stimulate new ventures in the arts; and to lay the foundation for making Singapore an international cultural centre for South East Asia” (as cited in Purushothaman, 2007, p. 31).

In the aftermath, local news outlets praised the inaugural festival for drawing large crowds, with the Singapore Free Press (SFP) reporting that an estimated 12,000 people watched the shows in the indoor venues (Wee, 1959). ST (1959c) claimed over 500 people watched an outdoor concert in the Padang despite poor weather.

With the success of the first festival, a spokesperson for the Singapore Arts Council later said that there was a high possibility the festival would become an annual occurrence (Wee, 1959). On the 1959 Festival’s culture-making function, Purushothaman (2007) observed that its organisation was “to find a common ground for a nation comprised of a diasporic generation seeking to locate and produce a culture of their own” (p. 32).

However, with the end of colonialism in sight and Singapore achieving full self-governance in 1959, the purpose of an arts festival was to grow far more nationalistic. As one ST reporter writes: “The [first] Festival comes just as Singapore is moving into an era of self-awareness… It is a fitting prelude to the larger drama that is about to begin (ST, 1959c).

Cultural Festival: Consolidating a Malayan culture and identity

The new decade saw fervent interest in constructing a new postcolonial Malayan culture and identity for the colonies seeking their independence. With Singapore’s newly-elected government formed by the People’s Action Party in 1959 came the Ministry of Culture, set up in the same year to “engineer social and cultural integration” (Purushothaman, 2007, p.32). In service of that function, news records speak of an annual Cultural Festival or Pesta Kebudayaan, organised by the Ministry of Culture annually from 1960 to 1962. These yearly large-scale events appear separate from the frequent but much smaller Aneka Ragam Ra’aya or People’s Cultural Concerts, also organised by the Ministry of Culture during the period.

The first Cultural Festival was a week-long affair held at the Victoria Theatre in September 1960. According to ST (1960a), “the [festival] presentations would have a “Malayan bias,” and would depict the harmonious blending of the various communities in Malaya” (para. 4). The festival programme included plays “set in the local background with Malayan themes” (para. 7), dance items which featured “classical and folk dances of the four cultural streams” (para. 11), as well as a concert by the Singapore Chamber ensemble. Chia (1960) reports that the festival involved some 300 local artists from 15 cultural organisations.

The purpose of the Cultural Festival was laid out clearly by Inche Yusok Ishak, then Head of State:

…with the political changes in the Federation and Singapore, the concept of a Malayan culture had become an essential part of building a Malayan nation.

He stressed that, seen in this light, all the work of the Ministry of Culture, as well as various arts and cultural organisations to bring the arts to the masses was “clear proof” of their seriousness and determination to lay the foundations for a Malayan culture.
(ST, 1960b, para. 7)

Acting Prime Minister Dr. Toh Chin Chye, who opened the second Cultural Festival in 1961, echoed these sentiments: “The arts form an important instrument for the task of nation-building […] This Cultural Festival brings together the arts of our different communities and in doing so, it also brings the communities together” (ST, 1961, para. 8-9). Over 3,000 adults and 800 school children were reported to have taken part in the second edition (SFP, 1961; ST, 1961a).

In 1963, construction for the new National Theatre had been completed. To celebrate the opening of the theatre, a greatly expanded South-East Asian Cultural Festival was planned, involving 1,500 artists from 11 countries in the Asia region in a one-week performing arts programme in August (ST, 1963b). Billed “the greatest show in the East”, the main festival programme was staged at the National Theatre and Victoria Theatre, as well as free outdoor shows outside City Hall, at Hong Lim Green and at the Bukit Timah Community Centre (ST, 1963d).

The South-East Asian Cultural Festival was primarily organised as an opportunity to strengthen cultural relations between Singapore and its neighbours in the region, especially with the withdrawal of the British. Mr. K. C. Lee, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, had “made clear to [the cultural leaders of the invited countries] that this festival was a nonpolitical gathering, mainly designed to deepen understanding and forge stronger cultural links among peoples of Asian countries” (ST, 1963a, para. 5). In a message published in ST (1963c), Minister for Culture Mr. S. Rajaratnam reiterated the making of a united South-East Asian culture through the 1963 Festival:

This festival would not have been possible when the countries of South-East Asia languished under colonial domination…

All the countries which are participating in this Festival have three common golden thread [sic] running through the rich tapestries of their cultural life.

These common influences are the Malaysian, Chinese and Indian heritages.
(para. 5; 8-9)

But the years to follow the 1963 Festival were tumultuous, with Singapore’s merger with the Federation of Malaysia, in September of the same year, and its subsequent expulsion in 1965. This may be why no other large-scale arts or cultural festivals were planned for over a decade until 1977.

Singapore Festival of Arts 1977: A people’s festival

The Singapore Festival of Arts held in 1977 is widely accepted as the first national arts festival of independent Singapore. It was organised by the Ministry of Education through its youth arm, the Young Musicians Society (YMS).

Oddly, the Ministry of Culture was not involved with the planning of the inaugural arts festival. Purushothaman (2007) mentions the highly politicised, anti-establishment nature of the local art scene as well as the Ministry of Culture embarking on its own bevy of community-level arts and cultural programmes aimed at uniting the nation during the ’70s; these could be reasons for the glaring absence of Ministry of Culture in the 1977 Festival.

Another reason for the lack of public (and private) support for a national arts festival could be the anticipated poor returns on huge investments. The frequent point of comparison in news records of the decade was the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, which began in 1973 and was conceived by the Hong Kong Tourist Association and British Airways to reach out to international audiences. It was the biggest arts festival in Asia and the third largest in the world, and soon became the premier cultural event in the region, drawing huge crowds in its month-long programme (Lee, 1976; ST, 1973, 1977).

A ST article cited lukewarm interest in the public and private sectors in supporting a Singapore arts festival (Lee, 1976). An unnamed local musician was quoted as saying:

It is not that the Hongkong [sic] people are better than Singaporeans in organising such a spectacular international festival. It is simply that they are never short of generous sponsorship from commercial houses and airlines and front line encouragement from the government.
(para. 4)

The same article mentions poor local audience numbers for arts events; additionally, a spokesperson for the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (a precursor of today’s Singapore Tourism Board) said an arts festival in Singapore would not be commercially viable because it would not draw in tourists.

Nonetheless, a public call appeared in ST in 1976 for amateur artists – students and adults, individuals and groups – to participate in the first Singapore Festival of the Arts, slated to be held in April the following year. The main sponsor of the festival was multinational oil company Mobil, who pledged a total of $80,000 for the event. Public relations manager for Mobil, Mr. John Lim, is reported to have originated the idea for the festival, expanding the YMS’s initial proposal of a one-day concert into a six-day affair held at Victoria Theatre. Mr. Lim said:

Unlike the Hongkong [sic] Arts Festival, that is, which brings in top performers from all over the world, it becomes really a showcase of world talent assembled in Hongkong [sic]. A good thing in its own way, Yes, but it does nothing to encourage a lot of local participation – which is precisely what we are wanting to do.
(CKT, 1977, para. 24)

The 1977 Festival’s purpose was to build a cohesive Singaporean culture. Mr. Alex Abishegenaden, vice-chairman of the Young Musicians Society, said: “This [Festival] will be essentially Singaporean. So a Singaporean identity and culture will be evolved” (ST, 1976, para. 5). To that end, the open call was met with huge public interest – more than 1,300 participants were selected to perform in the programme; the participants also received cash prizes totalling $14,000 (CKT, 1977).

The high uptake of the festival was enough to spur the planning of the next festival in 1978, with Mobil almost-doubling its sponsorship to $150,000 (ST, 1978). The Ministry of Culture joined in the organisation of the 1978 Festival. Public and private support also grew over the ensuing years with new sponsors such as the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board and Singapore Airlines coming on board in later editions of the festival. Ever since 1977, there has been a national arts festival held every one or two years.

By Daniel Teo
Published on 3 April 2018

To find out how the story continues, visit Four Decades, an exhibition of ephemera from Singapore’s past national arts festivals, presented by Singapore International Festival of Arts 2018. The exhibition, which is supported by Centre 42’s Repository, includes a collection of past national arts festival programmes on display. Four Decades takes place on the 2nd Floor Corridor of The Arts House from 26 April to 12 May 2018. Admission is free.

References

Chia, H. (1960, September 6). 300 local artists for States pesta. In Singapore Free Press. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
CKT. (1977, April 25). A cultural reservoir?. In Business Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Lee, P. (1976, September 15). Not enough support for festival of the Arts. In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Morgan, L. (1959, March 30). Panorama of the cultures of the East. In Straits Times. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Purushothaman, V. (2007). Making the invisible visible: Three decades of the Singapore Arts Festival. Singapore: National Arts Council.
Singapore Free Press. (1961, August 18). All set for States big cultural festival. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1949, July 17). Plan for annual arts Festival. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1951, December 13). Spore urged: ‘Form Festival of Arts’. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1957, November 27). Now a Singapore pesta. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1958, November 25). Arts Council plans pesta for S’pore. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1959a, March 7). Eight-day festival of drama, dance. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1959b, March 30). Arts festival. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1959c, April 6). Big crowds at festival concerts. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1960a, August 22). Week-long cultural festival. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1960b, September 13). Culture festival is opened. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1961a, May 12). Singapore plans a super art show. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1961b, August 20). Role of the Cultural Festival in nation building. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1963a, July 11). Singapore the big, big show. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1963b, August 7). 1,500 from 11 countries to perform from tomorrow. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1963c, August 8). A historic event, milestone of an era says Rajaratnam. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1963d, August 8). Greatest show in the East open in Singapore today. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1973, February 28). HK Arts Festival opens to near capacity houses. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1976, October 13). Arts Festival in April to evolve local art-form. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1977, March 31). Lesson Spore can learn from the HK arts festival. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Straits Times. (1978, June 10). Arts Festival to be made event of world standing. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.
Waterman, S. (1998). Carnival for elites? The cultural politics of arts festivals. In Progress in Human Geography, 22(1), 54-74.
Wee, E. (1959, April 9). Arts Festival to be permanent annual fixture. In Singapore Free Press. Downloaded from NewspaperSG archive.

Update (10 April 2018): “Pesta Kenudayaan” in paragraph 14 was spelt incorrectly. It has been amended as “Pesta Kebudayaan”.
Update (30 April 2018): Introduction paragraph rewritten to better contextualise the article within SIFA 2018’s celebration of its four-decade heritage.

This article was published in Blueprint Issue #5.

Singapore Theatre in 2017 is supplemented with information from the following Centre 42 initiatives:

• The Repository is a digital archive of Singapore theatre ephemera. Several productions in the timeline which are restagings of earlier works are accompanied by images of Repository artefacts from these prior stagings.
• Citizens’ Reviews is a critical writing programme. Productions in the timeline which have been reviewed by a Citizen Reviewer have been marked with “CR”.

Responding to public feedback, the panels have been revised. At this point, they capture 133 dramatic works that were staged in 2017. Click each thumbnail to view a panel.

January to March 2017

April to May 2017

July to September 2017

October to December 2017

Design & layout: Daniel Teo
Research: Gwen Pew, Ma Yanling, Daniel Teo

Special thanks to Max Yam (ArtsRepublic) and Ke Weiliang

Featured Repository artefacts contributed by Checkpoint Theatre, Drama Box, I Theatre, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Teater Ekamatra, The Finger Players, The Necessary Stage, The Theatre Practice, Toy Factory & W!ld Rice

Panels last updated 28 March 2018.

If you discover productions missing from the timeline, have any suggestions or spot any errors, please write to us at info@centre42.sg.

Click on the Titles below to view the production materials in the Repository.

Be greeted by our colourful animal friends at Centre 42 this Halloween!

[See image gallery at centre42.sg]