It’s been a minute, and Toy Factory Productions’ biennial playwright mentorship programme has officially returned to forge a new path forward despite these times of general distress and regulatory restrictions. Now in its third iteration, The Wright Stuff Festival will proudly present three exciting new works from aspiring playwrights, selected from a pool of 34 submissions this year.
Taking place in October, the festival will be centered around the theme of Inwards, in hopes of evoking greater introspection and self-awareness—to develop a more cohesive social fabric. Just check out the following plays that confront pertinent issues which surround our personal choices and how they affect the people that we come into contact with.
The Time Machine
The Time Machine by Lim Shien Hian explores the dialectics between aspirations and fear, and the conflict between optimism and uncertainty. Notions of “what if” and “what could have been” surface as the play follows a scientist in the waning moments of her career, looking back at a life without the glorious achievements once imagined.
Further beaten down by her increasingly strained relationships, she contends with thoughts of all that “should have, would have, could have” as she faces off with time and her final project.
The Time Machine runs from Oct 1-3.
Lion
Lion by Jedidiah Huang uncovers familiar snippets of schoolyard mischief, long buried under layers of growth and additional responsibilities. Examining the nature of these buried moments and memories of the past, Lion looks into the influence and consequences borne of them, presenting a stage where causality is not mediated by time, where raw emotions take centre stage.
Lion runs from Oct 8-10.
Skin
Skin by Koh Tian Seng is an explicit portrayal of the complex interracial issues that underlie our society. For a generation accustomed to a general ethos of surface tolerance, Skin peels back layers of silence and avoidance as we follow an interracial couple’s challenges, tackling differences in religious faith, familial history, cultural beliefs, and habits. Skin highlights that extant crack often found between faith and love, a crack that should have made its last appearance decades ago.
Skin runs from Oct 15-17.
Book your tickets or find more information here.
