Plays for Youth is an anthology of six vibrant school plays written and submitted by members of SDEA. The plays in this anthology are selected based on their suitability for performance by students, and the anthology is published by Epigram.
This anthology is a valuable resource for drama educators and teachers-in-charge looking for scripts for their students to explore the joy of drama and theatre.
SDEA believes that playwriting and drama education can help students enhance their communication and collaborative skills while providing a supportive and safe environment for creative expression. This anthology is a small but significant step in providing educators with the relevant resources to encourage students to explore literature and drama, and nurture an appreciation for the arts, both of which are integral for holistic development.
This publication is the result of a special project by a workgroup formed by SDEA members, featuring plays selected from an open call in June 2024.
The anthology can be purchased at Epigram Bookshop: https://epigrambookshop.sg/products/plays-for-youth
Featured Texts
YP Inferno by Miriam Cheong
Synopsis
YP Inferno was written for Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School’s Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation for Drama in 2023. The idea was conceived with the guiding principles of bringing to light issues that secondary school students find particularly urgent and resonant. The students brought up the archetypes of the Young Punk and the Xiao Mei Mei, and that while adults may find the defining criteria of said archetypes arbitrary and ridiculous, fulfilling the criteria also comes with social currency. YP Inferno was thus created to not just satirise the archetypes of the cool kid of the current generation, but also illuminate the perceived importance and pressure of fitting into such molds.
About Miriam Cheong
As a playwright, Miriam most recently co-created Lotus Root Support Group with Shannen Tan for both Singapore and Melbourne audiences. Her autobiographical work, The Other F Word, received nominations for Best Actress, Best Director (not her), and Best Original Script. Her international debut, Sunday School of Hard Knocks, received a Judge’s Pick in Theatre at the 2023 Melbourne Fringe Festival. She has also written scripts for the Singapore Youth Festival’s Arts Presentation in English Drama, and currently teaches the Drama Performance Workshops for the Creative Art Programme.
Production History
YP Inferno was written for Kuo Chuan Presbyterian’s Singapore Youth Festival Arts Presentation for Drama in 2023.
Don't Friend You by Lewin Bernard
Synopsis
"Don't Friend You" is a play based on real-life experiences of bullying. It follows Julius, a young boy starting school, whose life is turned upside down after a misunderstanding in class. The play explores bullying in different phases of life, making it relatable to students who witness it daily. Using applied theatre, ecological analysis, and fun games, we uncovered layers of the character and performed it at the Singapore Youth Festival. This powerful story highlights the impact of three simple words and the different levels of bullying, sparking important conversations and reflections.
Lewin Bernard
Lewin Bernard (b.1982), is a Singaporean theatre director, educator and playwright, has been in the local arts industry since 2008. He has been writing, directing and teaching drama at local institutions since 2009. As an actor, he has worked with Disney (S.E.A), FOX TV, and Nickelodeon. Lewin has found that directing has allowed him to further diversify his body of works with greater autonomy. He is also branching out in the art industry by working with Chan + Hori Contemporary.
Production History
First performed at the Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre, 2008
Subsequently performed at the Singapore Youth Festival 2011 at ACS, Barker Road
@iamelodie by Aswani Aswath
Synopsis
Meet Elodie, a virtual teenage influencer with a knack for beauty and health! Her fanbase of teenage girls, the Melodies, aspire to look like picture-perfect Elodie and adopt her beauty and fitness tips – even if they seem unrealistic or beyond their means. But the endorsements and absurd methods don’t seem to end. Should the girls give in to peer pressure and subscribe to Elodie’s beauty standards?
@iamelodie explores the impact of social media on body image in youths. What happens when youths continue to be inundated with idealised versions of beauty?
Story and Concept by: Nur Sahirrah Safit and Tanjong Katong Girls School Drama Club
Directed by: Sahirrah Safit
Co-written by: Aswani Aswath
Aswani Aswath
Aswani Aswath is a bilingual writer and an arts educator with a Masters of Arts (Distinction) in Creative Writing from LASALLE College of the Arts. As a former Writer-in-Residence for Buds Theatre Company, she wrote scripts for schools and community-based projects. Her plays have been presented at the M1 Fringe Festival, N.O.W Festival (T:>Works) and Pathey Nimidam (Ravindran Drama Group) amongst others. In 2020, she completed The Necessary Stage’s Playwrights’ Cove mentorship programme.
Her artistic career, spanning a decade, has diversified into storytelling, poetry and screenwriting, with her works featured at the Singapore Writers Festival, Tamil Language Festival, Storyfest Singapore and on Mediacorp Vasantham.
Sahirrah Safit
Sahirrah Safit, a National Arts Council of Singapore Scholar, earned her BA (Hons) in Theatre Arts (Acting) from the University of Essex in 2012. With over a decade of experience, she has performed, directed, and taught at various institutions, including Singapore Polytechnic. A passionate advocate for youth empowerment through theatre, Sahirrah is also the Festival Director of the Asian Youth Theatre Festival. In 2023, she founded FAT CAT Theatrics, dedicated to engaging Singaporean youth in collaborative arts projects.
Production History:
@iamelodie was conceptualised and performed by the students of Tanjong Katong Girls’ School Drama Club for the Singapore Youth Festival. They clinched the 'Distinction' award in 2023. Sahirrah’s input and the students’ research informed some of the scenes and lines, allowing the team to collaboratively navigate an important topic.
Additional info: Any performances of this script require prior written permission from Tanjong Katong Girls' School. Unauthorized use or reproduction of this work is strictly prohibited.
(Un)masked by Regina Chua
Synopsis
In a world full of expectations and societal rules, can we truly be ourselves without judgement? Do we have to put on a mask to feel accepted, less judged, less criticised? Have we allowed the masks we wear to define who we are? Do we have the courage and ability to choose when to take our masks off? Are you willing to be (UN)MASKED?
Regina Chua
Regina is a passionate theatre arts practitioner-educator who believes in the transformative power of Dramatic Arts, as it holds the key to unlocking confidence and creativity from within the individual, whatever their age. There is power in words and by giving voice to pertinent issues through theatre, that can bring about change. Regina mainly does commission scripts and have written for institutions such as, but not limited to the National Environment Agency (NEA), Public Utilities Board (PUB), various Ministry of Education (MOE) schools. Regina also regularly teaches scriptwriting to students in primary and secondary schools to encourage creativity and empower each individual to have their voice heard.
Regina is a proud member of Singapore Drama Educator Association (SDEA) and is currently serving as its vice-president for the 2023-2025 term.
Production History
First staged by Jurongville Secondary School at Gateway Theatre for the Singapore Youth Festival 2021.
Mirror, Mirror by Verena Tay
Synopsis
Mirror, Mirror explores the condition of anorexia nervosa that often affects teenagers with low self-esteem. The central motif of a girl facing her mirror image stems from the playwright’s own discomfort with looking at herself in a mirror. Social pressure of all sorts can tip someone who lacks self-worth into a spiral of doubt, food deprivation and depression until he/she obsesses on weight loss as a means of self-control and becomes unhealthily thin and could possibly die.
Originally written in the late 1990s, this play still has much relevance today as teenagers continue to encounter the same social pressures.
Verena Tay
For over thirty years, Verena Tay (www.verenatay.com) acted, directed, and wrote for local English language theatre while working with companies such as The Necessary Stage, Action Theatre, TheatreWorks and Practice Theatre. She has published four play collections [In the Company of Women (2004), In the Company of Heroes (2011), Victimology (2011), The Car and Other Plays (2016)] and two short story anthologies. She is also a writer, editor, oral storyteller, and a voice, speech, and presentation skills facilitator, with much experience of teaching these skills in various Singaporean institutions. In 2024, she received a PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University.
Production History
Mirror, Mirror was originally conceived for The Necessary Stage as a touring play to be performed in school assembly halls and hence having two actors was an asset. Since the 1997 original staging, the play has been performed by student casts numerous times and the multiple roles have been distributed amongst various actors according to the respective director’s discretion. Mirror, Mirror was first published in Verena Tay’s first play anthology: In the Company of Women: Selected Plays (Singapore: SNP Editions, 2004, pp. 119–129). This version of the play contains slight textual modifications, from the original published text.
F(in)ding Joy by Othman M. Yusof
Synopsis
Az works hard to move with the tide and be as responsible as she can with what she has. But when expectations run high, something peculiar starts to happen… Joy, her house cat begins to talk.
She journeys to bring Joy back home… only to enter a world she barely knows to get what she really needs. Will being a Cat solve the hurt and pain of being unsupported? Az journeys to find meaning for Joy.
F(in)ding Joy was written by Othman M. Yusof and devised with the students of Admiralty Secondary School. The play was inspired from Buds Theatre’s collection of youth written plays and received dramaturgical input from Buds as part of their theatre education programme.
Othman M. Yusof
Othman is a theatre practitioner and drama educator. He is an actor, writer, manager, and educator skilled in both on and off-stage work. He believes that theatre and drama can facilitate a person’s growth personally and holistically. Othman aims to inspire learners of all ages to the joy of drama. He trained in Theatre at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA).
Production History
F(IN)DING JOY (previously named Wonderland Cat) was staged by Admiralty Secondary School at Gateway Theatre for the Singapore Youth Festival, on 05 April 2023 as well as Admiralty Secondary School Hall, on 20 May 2023.
Resource Guide
The Plays For Youth Resource Guide contains recommended drama activities, strategies, and discussion questions to make the most of the plays featured in the anthology. It was developed by contributing editors Adeeb Fazah, Jeffrey Tan, and Isabella Ow to complement the Anthology Plays For Youth. Each editor provides their own directorial perspectives and excavation methods that will be useful beyond the prescribed play.
The guide is an invaluable resource for drama educators, trainers, and teachers-in-charge looking for tools, strategies, activities, and worksheets useful in unpacking the themes in the texts, and exploration of drama and theatre.
Download The Guide Here
Launch
The anthology was launched on 21 March 2025, at the Imagination and Possibility Rooms at the National Library.
As part of the launch, actors from Buds Youth Theatre performed a dramatised reading of excerpts from each text, directed by Adeeb Fazah, artistic director of The Second Breakfast Company.
The performers were:
Vaishnavi Vaellu
Maximillian Tan
Joel Wong
Andrea Ralls
Theophilis Ansari
A panel discussion titled Writing For Young People was also held, moderated by Jeffrey Tan. The panel discussed the unique writing process and considerations in creating work with and for young people.
The panel consisted of the following:
Aswani Aswath
Jean Tay
Lewin Bernard
Miriam Cheong
Othman M. Yusof
Regina Chua
Verena Tay