The INSTANT CAFE HOUSE of ART and IDEAS [CHAI]Location: 6 Jalan 6/3, Off Jalan Templer, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.
Introduction to Playwriting
13 July | 7pm -10pm
No. of participants: 15 max
This workshop is aimed at those who have never written a play. Participants will be introduced to the basics of playwriting, such as the structure of a play (exposition, conflict, climax, resolution), as well as how to write believable and engaging characters.
The focus of this workshop will be on recognizing the elements that make up a play, and selectively using these to create drama. Particular attention will be made on the differences between the play and other literary forms (such as poetry and prose), with the intention of sensitizing writers to how the body, space and time interact within a performance setting.
Playwriting Workshop: At Home in the World
17 & 24 July | 2pm-5pm
No. of participants: 15 max
This workshop is aimed at those writers who have already penned plays, and is pitched at an intermediate level. In this workshop, participants will be led through a series of writing explorations, where they will investigate certain questions related to the craft. What kinds of audiences are we writing for? Is there a conflict between local concerns and universal relevance? Are there compromises to be made between authenticity (topical references, particular speech patterns) and intelligibility?
This workshop will examine how we can use the available materials around us—life stories, interviews, news reports, archival documents—as raw material for a play. The focus will be on writing characters and situations that are embedded within specific social, political and cultural contexts.
Poetry Workshop
20 July | 830pm-1030pm
No. of participants: 15 max
This workshop is aimed at those who would like to explore the different approaches to writing poetry. Unlike other poetry workshops, this workshop will concentrate not on beginning a poem, but on crafting one. Hence an emphasis will be placed on the process of revising and editing, paying close attention to how the selection of words and the structuring of lines affect the production of meaning.
The poet will provide samples from his own poems to demonstrate how choices are made which determine the final shape of a poem. The attempt is to demystify poetry-writing, which is above all a continuous process of meticulous redrafting, rather than the transcription of a single burst of inspiration.
DRAMATISED READINGS
sex.violence.blood.gore by Alfian Sa’at
A Special Multilingual Edition @ CHAI featuring Malaysian Actors
24 July | 830pm
Six episodes, exploring the themes in the title. A repressed Geography teacher visits her sister and reveals her nymphomaniac tendencies. Two ladies in colonial Singapore yearn for lesbianrelationships with their Cantonese maidservants. Japanese soldiers visit their favourite man-whore for one last time after Japan’s surrender. Three explorers are stranded in the North Pole, their mission to transport glaciers back to a future Singapore where Malaysia has cut off its water supply. Two working class teens meet a pair of transvestites on an MRT train. And then there is the story of Annabel Lee, an apparition who is part Annabel Chong, part Lee Kuan Yew.
About Alfian Sa'at
Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with W!LD RICE, one of Singapore’s most recognized theatre companies. He is also as Associate Artist with Teater Ekamatra, a Malay-language theatre company. His published works include two collections of poetry, ‘One Fierce Hour’ and ‘A History of Amnesia’, as well a collection of short stories, ‘Corridor’.
Alfian has been nominated six times for Best Script at the Life! Theatre Awards, eventually winning in 2005 for his play, ‘Landmarks’, and later in 2010 for his play, ‘Nadirah’. He has also been nominated for the Kirayama Asia-Pacific Book Prize and the Singapore Literature Prize for ‘A History of Amnesia’. In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. His plays have been translated into German and Swedish and have been performed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich, Hamburg, Berlin and Stockholm.
More information here.
