HASS Talk – Theatre in the City: The Role of the Arts in Urban Communities

In this talk, Cheng Nien Yuan draws from her research on two eminent theatre companies in Singapore, The Necessary Stage (TNS) and Drama Box, to consider the role of theatre and performance in promoting urban live-ability and love-ability. From the Theatre For Seniors programme by TNS to the site-specific work of Drama Box such as IgnorLAND of its Loss and ubin, these ground-up companies have shaped the fabric of the Singaporean cityscape in a way that goes beyond formal theatrical spaces, telling stories that help denizens negotiate the stressors of a rapidly changing environment. At the same time, the companies are part of an ecosystem that is very much an urban community in itself, subject to the same kinds of precarity of modern existence. This seminar explores the potentialities and realities of creative praxis in the city-state.

CHENG Nien Yuan is a Singaporean performance scholar and dramaturg. She is presently a Faculty Early Career Award Fellow at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. She obtained her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney in 2020, and her thesis was awarded the 2021 John Legge Prize for Best Thesis in Asian Studies in Australia. Her work explores the poetics of storytelling and dramaturgy in the digital age, Singaporean community and intercultural theatre, and oral histories in/as performance. She has been published in the Oral History Review, Studies in Theatre and Performance, and Performance Paradigm among others. She has a forthcoming book, The Storytelling State: Performing Lives in Singapore, published by the University of Hawai’i Press (2025). http://cheng-nienyuan.com