Checkpoint Theatre is committed to nurturing Singapore’s new generation of theatre practitioners. As part of that commitment, Joint Artistic Director Huzir Sulaiman conceived and taught the first undergraduate playwriting course at the National University of Singapore (NUS) from 2007 to 2013. This course has since been continued and taught by our Checkpoint Associate Artists.
During that period, Claire and Huzir served as Principal Tutors for NUS Stage, the only university-wide English language theatre company at NUS. This mentorship was multi-disciplinary and covered all aspects of theatre-making, including writing, acting, directing, design, and management.
These efforts culminated in professional stage productions which received critical and popular acclaim. Two plays written under Huzir’s tutelage – Faith Ng’s wo(men) and Shiv Tandan’s The Good, the Bad and the Sholay – were staged by Checkpoint Theatre with NUS Stage, and both were selected as among the Top 5 Best Plays of 2010 and 2011 respectively by The Flying Inkpot. Plays written under Huzir’s mentorship are also regularly produced by other professional theatre companies in Singapore, such as Buds Theatre Company and Wild Rice.
On the public front, Checkpoint Theatre runs TheatreCraft for Youths: The Art of Playwriting for budding writers. Since its first iteration in December 2014, TheatreCraft has seen batches of teenagers write short plays of their own under the guidance of our Associate Artists. Participants are taught the key elements of craftsmanship and a good play in a series of carefully-designed exercises about character development, basic form and framing devices, and language. Over the course of 5 days, participants will create their own 15-minute plays, which are performed in a reading at the end of the workshop.