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After the successful launch of Trilogy, The Necessary Stage returns with another collection of plays, Shorts I by Haresh Sharma.
This collection of 6 plays contains some of Sharma’s best and most popular early works. 3 of them, Lanterns Never Go Out, Still Building and More have been published in a previous collection, but which is no longer available.
The other 3 plays, Hope, Talk I and Talk II have never been published before.
The collection also contains an introduction by Alvin Tan as well as notes to each play by Sharma.
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"In the world of Singapore theatre, few can doubt that Haresh Sharma... is among its most powerful drivers"
—Kirpal Singh
"The early plays by Sharma have a freshness and vitality which open up spaces for asking new questions of regimes and political systems. They raise new ideas about issues often overlooked on stage. Sharma doesn't create a discourse of antagonism or aggressive advocacy for change. Rather, he gently opens up little corners, pushes aside, just a little, the curtains, to open up a new discourse of what it means to be the first adult new Singaporeans post separation."
—David Birch
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Haresh Sharma is Resident Playwright of The Necessary Stage and co-Artistic Director of the annual M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. To date, he has written about 100 plays. One of these, Off Centre, was selected by the Ministry of Education as a Literature text for ‘N’ and ‘O’ Levels, and republished by The Necessary Stage in 2006. In 2008, Interlogue: Studies in Singapore Literature, Vol. 6, was published by Ethos Books. Written by Prof David Birch and edited by A/P Kirpal Singh, it presents an extensive investigation of Haresh’s work over the past 20 years. A collection of Haresh’s plays was also translated into Mandarin and published as <<哈里斯·沙玛剧作选>> by Global Publishing. In 2010, Epigram Books published Those Who Can’t, Teach.
Haresh was awarded Best Original Script for Fundamentally Happy, Good People and Gemuk Girls during the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Life! Theatre Awards respectively. In 2010, the abovementioned plays were published by The Necessary Stage in the Trilogy collection. Most recently, two collections of short plays by Haresh, Shorts 1 and Shorts 2, were published as well. In 2011, Haresh became the first non-American to be awarded the prestigious Goldberg Master Playwright by New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. In 2014, Haresh was awarded the prestigious S.E.A. Write Award.
