In Conversation: Making Theatre of the Everyday

Amir Reza Koohestani was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1978. At a young age, he began publishing short stories in local newspapers and working in film. After a brief experience as a performer, he devoted his time to writing his first plays—And the Day Never Came  (1999) and The Murmuring Tales  (2000)—for the Mehr Theatre Group. Koohestani's third play, Dance on Glasses  (2001), gained him international notoriety and the support of several European theatrical artistic directors and festivals.

Further work includes the plays Recent Experiences (from the original text by Canadian writers Nadia Ross and Jacob Wren, 2003);  Amid the Clouds  (2005);  Dry Blood & Fresh Vegetables  (2007);  Quartet: A Journey North  (2008);  Where Were You on January 8th?  (2009);  Ivanov  (2011); and The Fourth Wall  (from the original play England  by Tim Crouch, 2012), which was presented one hundred times in an art gallery in Tehran.

Over the past fifteen years, Koohestani wrote and directed the plays Timeloss  (2013),  Hearing  (2015) and Summerless  (2018), which was presented as the “Time Trilogy” at the Festival TNB, in Rennes, France in November 2018.

Koohestani’s plays are distinguished by their poetic narratives, subtle criticism, and exploration of personal and political themes. Through his creations, he continues to inspire and challenge audiences around the world, combining the intimate and the universal and offering a unique perspective on the intersection of Iranian and contemporary global theatre.

Haresh Sharma is the Resident Playwright of The Necessary Stage. He has written more than 130 plays which have been staged in over 20 cities. His play, Off Centre, was the first Singapore play selected by the Ministry of Education as a Literature text for GCE N- and O-Levels. Haresh also had the honour of having a selection of his works featured at Esplanade’s first playwright-centred season at The Studios in 2017.

In 2014, he was conferred the Southeast Asian Writers (or S.E.A. Write) Award (Singapore), which recognises and honours literary excellence in the ASEAN region. He was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 2015. In 2021, Haresh published Reading the Room: A Playwright’s Devising Journey, which documents his journey as a playwright and theatre-maker in Singapore. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts by Bath Spa University (UK) in 2025.

Heng Leun is a prominent theatre director, playwright, dramaturg, and educator, known for engaging the community on various issues through the arts, championing civic discourse across different societal segments.

As Founder, Artist of Drama Box (Singapore), notable directorial works over his three-decade career include Drift, Trick or Threat, and Underclass; site-specific theatre ubin and Project Mending Sky; Both Sides, Now, which explores end-of-life conversations, and most recently Air, about the dispossession of the indigenous Malays and Orang Seletar of Singapore.

National awards received include the Young Artist Award, Cultural Fellowship, and Cultural Medallion. He also served as a Nominated Member of Parliament (2016 – 2018), representing the arts sector. In 2024, he received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Tainan, for his achievements in the fields of academia, arts and education.