Eclipse by The Necessary Stage (Singapore)

Dates and Times:

15 January 2025, Wednesday, 8pm

16 January 2025, Thursday, 8pm

17 January 2025, Friday, 8pm

18 January 2025, Saturday, 5pm & 8pm

...Eclipse suggests that ancestral memory is never as meaningful as the allegiances of everyday life.

—The Guardian UK

A young Singaporean man is making a journey to his father's birthplace in Hyderabad, Pakistan. With him are his father's ashes. As he makes the arduous trip, he retraces the original journey made by millions of people—including his parents and grandparents—in 1947, during the partition of India and Pakistan.

Written by Cultural Medallion recipient Haresh Sharma, Eclipse is a play that looks at three generations of men struggling with their dreams and their journeys, offering an intimate look at personal stories affected by historical events.

First presented as a short play to critical acclaim by Scotland’s 7:84 Theatre at Traverse Theatre, Eclipse was developed into a full-length production for theM1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2008.

Almost 80 years after the Partition, this staging with a fresh new direction by Associate Artist A Yagnya stars award-winning Singapore actor Shrey Bhargava. It also features Indian classical vocalist Sveta Kilpady.

(Playwright Haresh Sharma) has demonstrated a deftness and maturity in scriptwriting, a deeper inquiry into life and humanity, as well as an evident progress in terms of his creations.

—联合早报 Lianhe Zaobao [translated from Chinese]

Accessibility features: Open captions in English for all shows.

There will be a dialogue with the artists after the performances on 16 and17 January 2025, with speech to text interpretation available upon request for the dialogue on 17 January 2025. Please email your request to [email protected] by 6 December 2024.

General

Once tickets are sold, there are strictly no cancellation, exchange or refund.

For concession tickets, random verification checks may be carried out at the theatre.

Photography

Photography and videography are strictly not allowed during the performance.

Accessibility

We welcome patrons who need accessible seating arrangements—including wheelchair users, those who require access to open captions, and those with assistance dogs.

Due to varying production designs and seating configurations, please contact us at [email protected] before booking your ticket so we can share more information about seating and routes with you. You can also find more information about accessibility at the Fringe website.

For queries or more information, please contact us at [email protected].

THE NECESSARY STAGE

Established in 1987, The Necessary Stage (TNS) is a non-profit theatre company with charity status. Our mission is to create challenging, indigenous and innovative theatre that touches the heart and mind. TNS has the honour of being the only arts company in Singapore helmed by two Cultural Medallion recipients: Artistic Director and Founder Alvin Tan and Resident Playwright Haresh Sharma. The company is also the organiser and curator of the annual M1 Singapore Fringe Festival.

TNS is supported by the National Arts Council under the Major CompanyScheme for the period from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2026.

For more information, visit necessary.org and tnsarchives.com or contact us at [email protected].

CAST – SHREY BHARGAVA

Shrey works as an actor across theatre, film and television. He has a double BA in Theatre (Acting) and Cinema & Media Studies from the University of Southern California. He was named a Renaissance Scholar and awarded the Ruth & Albert McKinlay Award for Best Actor.

His theatre credits include The Prose and The Passion (2024), Crack the Case: Backstage Betrayal (2024), Crack the Case: Mindhunter (2023), No Particular Order (2023), The Singapore Trilogy (2021), The Cider House Rules: Parts 1& 2 (2019), Dragonflies (2017), Equus (2016) and The Pillowman (2014).

His film & TV credits include Elevator (2024), Come Closer (2023), Titoudao: Dawn of a New Stage (2023), Third Rail (2022) and This Land is Mine (2021).

He was named the National Winner for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at thebAsian Academy Creative Awards 2023 for his performance in TiTouDao.

HINDUSTANI VOCALIST – SVETA KILPADY

Sveta Kilpady is a North Indian Classical Vocalist with a passion for delighting music lovers all over the world. She is a disciple of Pandit Jialal Vasant, Shrimati Manik Bhide, and Dr. Aneeta Sen, and is currently taking guidance in Thumri from Shrimati Manju Sundaram of Varanasi. She is the winner of the All India Radio prize for Light Classical Music and has also received the national scholarship presented by the government of India. She has performed extensively at various festivals, thematic concerts and baithaks across India. She has also had well-received concert tours across the USA, UK, Middle East, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

DIRECTOR – A YAGNYA

A Yagnya is a collaborative theatre-maker.

Yagnya’s playwriting credits include Help! Our Dead Have Dementia andOther Stories (SIFA X: there is no future in nostalgia), Between 5 Cows and the Deep Blue Sea... (Esplanade’s Kala Utsavam 2022, The Straits Times Life Theatre Award Nomination for Best Original Script) which she also co-directed, and Hi, Can You Hear Me? (The Necessary Stage’s [TNS] Playwright’s Cove 2020, then developed as a main season production of the company in 2024).

She has also done the Japanese translation for Chong Tze Chien’s Kingdoms Apart (Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay’s In New Light—A Season ofCommissions, 2022), dramaturged for (un)becoming (T:>Works’ Festival of Women N.O.W. 2021), co-written for GroundZ_0’s Prism of Truth (Esplanade – Theatre on the Bay’s Huayi 2020) and acted in Goddesses of Words: Angry Indian Women (The Arts House’s Textures 2020).

She was a participant in Devising for Actors and Playwrights 2021 andPlaywrights’ Cove 2020 by TNS and is currently one of TNS’ Associate Artists for 2024. Yagnya was also a resident playwright at Centre 42’s Playwright's Professional Development Residency Pilot 2022-2023.

Yagnya enjoys creating socially conscious works that challenge her audience into breaking out of their echo chambers.

IG: @iggyeggieggyagnya

PLAYWRIGHT – HARESH SHARMA

Haresh has been the Resident Playwright of The Necessary Stage (TNS) since1990. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 2015. To date, he has written more than 120 plays which have been staged in over 20 cities. His play, Off Centre, was selected by the Ministry of Education as a Literature text for GCE N-and O-Levels.

Haresh has 13 publications of his plays, including Trilogy, Shorts 1,S horts 2, Don't Forget to Remember Me and Abuse Suxxx!!! and Other Plays. His works have been translated into Malay, Mandarin, Greek and Italian. He was awarded Best Original Script for Fundamentally Happy, Good People and Gemuk Girls at the 2007, 2008 and 2009 The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards respectively. Most recently in 2021, Haresh published Reading the Room: A Playwright’s Devising Journey, which details his devising process developed over his career at TNS. Haresh also had the honour of having as election of his works featured at Esplanade’s first playwright-centred season at The Studios in 2017.

He has participated in several writers' festivals including the inauguralSingapore Literature Festival in New York (2014), New Delhi World Book Fair (2015), Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (2015), Hong Kong Literary Festival (2015), and Neilson Hays Bangkok Literature Festival (2019).

Haresh is the first non-American to be awarded the prestigious Goldberg Master Playwright by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in2011. In 2014, he was conferred the Southeast Asian Writers (or S.E.A. Write) Award (Singapore), which recognises and honours literary excellence in the ASEAN region.

SET & LIGHTING COORDINATOR– FAITH LIU YONG HUAY

Faith Liu Yong Huay is honoured to have worked on numerous theatre and dance productions in Singapore as a lighting designer. In September 2017, she co-founded 微 Wei Collective with theatre practitioner Neo Hai Bin. She explores giving breath to spaces, objects and bodies with light.

She trained at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in Lighting Design (2016), under the National Arts Council Arts Scholarship (Postgraduate).

Please visit her portfolio at: LiuYongHuay.tumblr.com