The Singapore Fringe Festival 2027 runs from 13 to 24 January 2027 at Esplanade Theatre Studio and Practice Space at The Theatre Practice. Most tickets cost S$38. If loneliness, AI companions and finding your people are things you talk about with friends anyway, this is a good way to see them on stage this January.
This is the Fringe’s 23rd edition. Organiser The Necessary Stage has built nine events around the theme of Belonging. There are seven Singapore and international productions, a devising workshop that ends in a free public showing, and a panel on art and activism.
Melissa Lim, the festival’s Executive Producer and General Manager of The Necessary Stage, says: “The desire to belong is so intrinsically human. Yet today, in a world where we are assailed with conflict and violence, where we are relinquishing data and freedom to algorithms, many around the world are feeling physically, emotionally, and even morally bereft.” That’s a heavy brief for a January night out, and the line-up commits to it.
Lonely at the End of the World
The show behind the headline is From the Trembling World by the company Poong Deong 풍덩. In the festival’s synopsis, sinkholes open without warning and swallow streets, homes and whole cities, while the rest of the country prays to a “Rope God” to pull them to salvation.
The protagonist takes another route. She walls herself into a fortress built from debris, and her only company is Bongpal, a conversational AI that becomes her closest friend. Anyone who has vented to a chatbot because it felt easier than texting a friend will recognise the premise. That’s exactly why it’s the first show on this list worth circling.
Dates and timings sit on the From the Trembling World page, so check there before you plan the rest of your Fringe around it.
One Divorce, Both Sides
Best Of Us by The Necessary Stage is the homegrown pick with the most history behind it. The festival’s notes on the work explain that playwright Haresh Sharma wrote Best Of in 2013, a monologue about a young Malay-Muslim woman going through a divorce. Three years later, Best Of (His Story) gave the husband’s side.
Now, for the first time, he has combined the two into one play and is directing it himself. Siti Khalijah Zainal reprises her role as the wife, Fir Rahman plays the husband, and the estranged couple reunite at the Syariah court, the Islamic court that handles Muslim divorces in Singapore. Sharma’s artist statement asks whether audiences will take sides, or find themselves hoping for reconciliation instead.
It plays from 13 to 16 January at 8pm, with 3pm matinees on 16 and 17 January, at Esplanade Theatre Studio. The 90-minute show has no intermission and is performed in English and Malay, with English open captions at every performance.
The 16 January 3pm show is a relaxed performance, a more flexible setting for audiences who need one. Post-show dialogues follow the 8pm shows on 14 and 15 January, and the play is eligible for SG Culture Pass credits, the government arts credits for Singaporeans.
Two Small Rooms, Two Big Stories
Room by Birds Migrant Theatre is the one to book early. About 15 people from Singapore’s deaf and migrant worker communities share what “room” means to them, whether that’s a place to sleep or a home to call their own. Their words are edited into verbatim theatre, a form that puts real people’s own words on stage.
Room will be the first Fringe production presented fully with Singapore Sign Language interpretation alongside English open captions. That makes it two communities that rarely hold the mic, telling their story in a format built for both of them! The Room page has the dates.
Jamil Sekadar Nama (Jamil is Just a Name) marks Ali Mazrin’s debut as a playwright. A man on death row digs through his memories and regrets inside his cell, accompanied only by a mysterious figure. In his artist statement, Ali says he hopes audiences leave “unsettled, provoked, and compelled to reflect.” It runs 20 to 22 January at 8pm at Esplanade Theatre Studio for 60 minutes, in Malay with English open captions, and takes SG Culture Pass credits too.
Far From Home, Still Moving
The international programme is where the theme turns most urgent. In Under the Flesh, Lebanese choreographer Bassam Abou Diab draws on four wars in South Lebanon (1993, 1996, 2000 and 2006). His artist statement describes the piece as his “true and painful experience of war outside the politics of it,” told through dark humour and moves drawn from dabke, the Levantine folk dance he started out performing.
Catch it on 23 January at 8pm or 24 January at 3pm at Esplanade Theatre Studio. The 55-minute Asian premiere is in Arabic, with live translation and English open captions.
WILMA by Mexico’s Porta Teatro is a solo work by performer Itzhel Razos. It follows a girl from a classist household who is kept from learning Mayan. Then a hurricane hits, and the emergency alerts are broadcast only in Mayan, which turns a family’s snobbery into a matter of survival.
WILMA plays 14 and 15 January at 8pm at Practice Space, 54 Waterloo Street. It’s another Asian premiere, 60 minutes long, in Spanish with English open captions.
Rounding out the international picks is Second Class Queer by Kumar Muniandy (Germany and Malaysia). Krishna, a gay Tamil-Malaysian man, sits across from five very different dates at a speed-dating night in Berlin, and each round pushes him towards the truth he never told his late mother. The play takes on racism, xenophobia, colourism and classism along the way.
Free Events
Two events are free with registration: the panel and the closing showing of a workshop. The panel Activism and Art in Singapore: Muted or Revitalised? is moderated by Sudhir Vadaketh, with panellists Bani Haykal, Dayana Noor, Kirsten Han and Kristian-Marc James Paul.
Devising with Emerging Actors puts aspiring actors through seven sessions using the methods behind The Necessary Stage’s Off Centre and Gemuk Girls. It ends with a free public showing of works-in-progress built around Belonging. The workshop itself costs $200; only the showing and the panel are free with registration.
If you need speech-to-text interpretation for a post-show dialogue, email info@singaporefringe.com by 9 December 2026.
🗓️ Date: 13 to 24 January 2027
⏰ Time: Evening shows at 8pm, matinees at 3pm (varies by production)
📍 Location: Esplanade Theatre Studio, and Practice Space, The Theatre Practice, 54 Waterloo Street, Singapore 187953
🎟️ Tickets: S$38 for all performances except Room; 20% off for students, NSFs (full-time National Servicemen), senior citizens and PwD (persons with disabilities) cardholders; prices exclude ticketing fee; panel and devising showing free with registration
If you only book one night, make it the AI survival story or the sign-language-and-captions production about who gets a room of their own, since both look straight at who gets left out and who finds their people anyway. Grab your tickets on BookMyShow and start mapping out your Fringe nights for January!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Singapore Fringe Festival (From the Trembling World by Poong Deong 풍덩, Best Of Us by Tuckys Photography, WILMA by Irma Monterrubio, and Second Class Queer by Sara Moralo).
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