M1 Peer Pleasure Youth Theatre Festival, Singapore’s only annual theatre festival by young people presented by ArtsWok Collaborative in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, returns this July after a one-year hiatus. It comes back with a new Artistic Director, veteran theatre practitioner and drama educator, Jean Ng, and with a heightened social conscience. Ngiam Su-Lin, Producer for the festival shares that “this new approach of immersing youths in important topics that concern their society and future is an effort to nurture their social consciousness while simultaneously developing them as young theatre practitioners.”

This year’s festival explores the issue of poverty in Singapore: an issue in the spotlight and with the festival youth participants weighing in with their devised plays which emerged after a 1.5 year-long research and creation process.

Three groups of youths from across the socio-economic continuum were invited to create, and stage work for the festival. This allowed for a diversity of voices and experiences, as well as for the youth to encounter, and learn from each other during the research process. The three groups are: The Community Theatre (Beyond Social Services), Anglo-Chinese School (Barker Road) and Anderson Secondary School. The two schools will be staging a Double Bill of plays – The Ground and Wonderland, while The Community Theatre will be staging a full-length play, The Block Party.

Visit www.peerpleasure.org for more information.

Venue: Various Venues at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay

When: 24 Jul - 4 Aug 2019,

By: Esplanade