Other Work

Amongst other things, dramalab has facilitated and run: -
· Writers’ Workshops – dramalab has run a series of successful playwriting workshops. The idea behind the workshops was to get Malaysian writers working in other media to think about writing for theatre. The first Writers’ Workshop involved ten writers and focussed on the writing of dramatic monologues. It culminated in the production of One by One, a two part theatre event stretching over two weeks consisting of a total of twelve monologues written by ten writers, involving twelve actors and twelve directors. dramalab’s Writers’ Workshop II: Short Plays was run in collaboration with Five Arts Centre and resulted in a rehearsed reading of five plays. Two of the plays have been given full-scale productions, A Flight Delayed by Yasmin Yaacob, and Good Daughters by Mira Mustafa. Both these writers are now fulltime scriptwriters for television.

· The Acting Lab – a ten-week introductory course in Acting. The course is conducted by Zahim Albakri. It seeks to give the participants the foundations of actor training with particular emphasis on creating a character and working with text. One session of the course is devoted to Screen acting. The first one was held in 2002 and amongst its participants was Soraya Dean, Soefira Jaafar and Bernie Chan.

· The Directing Lab – an ongoing mentoring programme whereby apprentice directors undergo long-term process of research, planning and conceptualising supervised by Zahim Albakri. The Directing Lab will lead to an eventual workshop production of the play of their choice.

· Stage Management Workshops – dramalab have held a number of stage management workshops in the past. The object of the workshop was to introduce professional practice to the performing arts industry and to redress the lack of trained stage managers in Malaysia.

· Rehearsed Readings – dramalab has presented rehearsed staging of works-in-progress. It is an effective means by which budding playwrights can test their work before an audience. These readings would involve feedback sessions between the author and audience members.

· Events and Launches – dramalab has also worked with corporate clients to organise and produce tailor-made events and performances for promotions and launches. Some of the clients we have worked with are La Mer, Westin Hotels and Tourism Malaysia.