Ong Keng Sen directs Jacintha and Dick Lee at Sifa 2026; plus Jeremy Tiang’s Obie Award-winning play

Ong Keng Sen directs Jacintha and Dick Lee at SIFA 2026, plus Jeremy Tiang’s Obie Award-winning play. Read more at straitstimes.com.

SINGAPORE – Cultural icons Jacintha Abisheganaden and Dick Lee sharing a stage in a biographical performance. A meta-drama harking back to landmark stagings of an Arthur Miller play 40 years ago. The return of the festival village of the 2000s, complete with pre-show makan and post-show chatter.

Expect a serious throwback at theatremaker Chong Tze Chien’s first outing as festival director of 2026’s Singapore International Festival of Arts (Sifa), happening from May 15 to 30.

Billed with an overarching story arc of Let’s Play spanning his three-year tenure, the latest edition of Sifa kicks off with the theme of Legacy and features 12 festival commissions.

Tickets go on sale at sifa.sg from March 12, 4pm. Early-bird savings of 20 per cent are available from March 12 to April 13, and audiences can use their SG Culture Pass for five events.

Running the festival village at Empress Lawn, Chong says, is like running a second festival – all in the hopes that it will create the “festival vibe” he remembers fondly as a young theatremaker. Ninety per cent of festival village activities – which include late-night programming from 9.30pm curated by Hothouse and performances by The Theatre Practice – are free.

It is not just a festival for night owls – early risers can make the sunrise sojourn to the festival village at 6.30am on May 28, 29 and 30 to catch The Observatory’s two-hour site-specific sound installation and performance Rupture, which draws from the sounds and histories of volcanoes.