TNS Team

Alvin is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Necessary Stage and a leading proponent of devising theatre in Singapore, having directed more than 80 plays. He is also the current Artistic Director of the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, the Young Artist Award (1998) and the Cultural Medallion (2014). In 2010, Alvin was conferred the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. The following year, he was awarded Best Director at The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards for Model Citizens by The Necessary Stage. He was also the Artistic Director of Peer Pleasure, an annual youth theatre festival by ArtsWok Collaborative (2015–2017).

Haresh has been the Resident Playwright of The Necessary Stage since 1990, having written more than 100 plays staged in over 20 cities. His play, Off Centre, was the first Singapore play selected by the Ministry of Education for GCE N- and O-Levels. He was conferred the S.E.A. Write Award (2014) and the Cultural Medallion (2015). Haresh has 13 publications of his plays, with works translated into Malay, Mandarin, Greek and Italian. 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. He was awarded Best Original Script for Fundamentally Happy, Good People and Gemuk Girls at The Straits Times Life Theatre Awards. Haresh also had the honour of having his works featured at Esplanade’s first playwright-centred season at The Studios in 2017.