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Hello! Welcome to my weekly newsletter!
Enjoy a dose of my playwriting process,
writing confessions, and all the mess in between.
NOBODY PANIC!
Yes, of course I do.
But sometimes, it feels like theatre doesn’t like me anymore.
The question I get often is: if you love theatre, why don’t you do it full time?
And my answer is always: because theatre has no money.
The Reality
It’s really difficult to do theatre full-time — especially when you’re not in the country you started in. In my case, Singapore. Where they have a certain expectations for new scripts (it’s always very blatantly political, almost never veiled).
Building community, gaining trust, rebuilding networks takes years. It’s happening, but not at a pace fast enough. I should be patient, I know.
But there’s always a pressure to do it for love.
To hustle. To sacrifice. To “build the scene.”
But sisturgurl, love don’t pay rent.
Love doesn’t build a retirement fund.
And love sure as hell doesn’t cover insurance.
The Expectations
There’s an image of what a theatremaker should be.
Bold. Broke. Grateful.
As if living uncomfortably proves your dedication.
But what if I want kids?
What if I want a house?
What if I want to invest in something other than emotional damage?
The System
Audience-building is hard.
Support is low.
Grants are competitive. Sponsors prefer hashtags, and influencers, reach, impressions, follower counts, their ROI, their KPI.
And all government bodies want “safe” stories — polished, universal, marketable.
But my plays?
They’re too racy. Too raunchy. Too risky. Too real.
They don’t fit the box. And I don’t want to shrink to make them fit.
So I Ask:
Do I need to conform to succeed?
Do I water down my voice for a chance at funding?
Do I lean into market trends to finally get staged?
Do I become a sellout to sell fast/more?
Or…
Do I keep writing the plays I want to write — even if it means fewer shows, fewer stages, fewer yeses, less money, less opportunities?
Final Thought:
I still love theatre.
But sometimes, I wonder if there’s room in theatre for my kind of love.
Not the gentle kind. Not the polite kind. Not the political kind.
But the loud, complicated, joyful, traumatic, irreverent kind.
But in the meantime, what you could do to help, is share my website, subscribe if you haven’t, and help me spread the word.
Every single subscriber makes me feel like I can do this just a little more.