Host Serene Chen chats with Clarisse Ng and Goh Su Lin as they share insights about their time working as arts managers with The Necessary Stage during the 1980s and 1990s. Serene chimes in with her memories acting for TNS productions in the 1990s!

Since its inception, the company recognised that the artistic and administrative aspects of its organisation were of equal importance, resulting in their collaborators taking on multiple roles across the company’s branches, spaces and productions. Given the company’s trademark practice of devised work, Clarisse and Su Lin further explain how their unique process-oriented approach to theatre-making presented equally unique challenges to the arts manager. We also learn how Su Lin’s legal background helped the young company in managing unprecedented controversies, navigating their way around setbacks that allowed them to become one of Singapore’s most eminent and well-loved companies to date.