Crowdfunded Singapore Fringe Festival 2026 returns with four shows and two panel discussions in January

SINGAPORE – The Singapore Fringe Festival 2026 will be a “people’s” festival, says Ms Melissa Lim, general manager of theatre company The Necessary Stage (TNS), which organises the event. 

This is because the festival’s

shoestring budget of about $50,000 was raised entirely through crowdfunding

from the public. 

One of the country’s longest-running fringe festivals returns from Jan 15 to 25, 2026, with just four shows and two panel sessions, compared with seven shows in 2025. Telecommunications company M1, which had been a sponsor since the festival’s inception in 2005,

ended its financial support after the 21st edition in 2025.

Tickets for the 2026 event go on sale from Nov 11.

M1’s sponsorship started at $250,000 and dipped to $100,000 by the festival’s 2025 edition. Nonetheless, Ms Lim says: “I am still very grateful that it stuck with us. There are not many corporate sponsors in the arts that finance for such a long time.” 

The 22nd edition carries the theme of Represent, with a double meaning of re-presenting the fringe as a ground-up event, resurrected courtesy of public support, as well as championing marginal voices, one of its consistent core values from its founding.

Ms Lim adds: “There is so much talk about whether representation is taking a blow. What does representation mean? Is it just visibility? Is it only the community that can speak up for themselves? Can we practise effective allyship without it becoming performative?” 

As usual, TNS will present a show. For this festival, it is collaborating with charity group ART:DIS for Invisible, a play addressing invisible disabilities such as learning disabilities and chronic illnesses.

The collaboration arose out of TNS’ resident playwright Haresh Sharma’s long working relationship with ART:DIS. He has been helping to train its emerging artists. 

Ms Lim says the casting for this show is deliberately egalitarian. “We are not asking the person with disability to play that disability. This is one way for us to break out of this mould where oftentimes, persons with disabilities are asked to narrate their disability, to talk about their own life experiences. Why shouldn’t they be playing someone else?” 

There are two queer-themed works in the festival: A Lesbian Love Story: The Musical by Woody Avenue, a theatre collective comprising practitioners from Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom; and one-man show Retina Manoeuvre by Germany-based Taiwan theatre-maker Wang Ping-hsiang.

Festival manager Jezamine Tan says the makers of A Lesbian Love Story were compelled to counter mass-media narratives with their show. “Oftentimes in a lot of media, queer love stories have a tragic ending. The protagonists in this show go through a journey of wanting to create a happy story.” 

Wang sings about his experience as a gay man conscripted for military reservist duties, channelling his views through karaoke. Ms Lim says the work, while rooted in the personal, also addresses a larger hot-button issue of geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea. 

The last monologue, Sofie Buligis’ Celup hits closer to home as the actress, who is classified as Malay, addresses her mixed heritage. 

Despite the shoestring budget, Ms Lim says the festival is expanding its offerings with two panel discussions, which seek to extend the conversation beyond the shows. Is This Too Loud? Representation In Theatre and No Space For Art: Is The Fringe Dead? will feature the performers in moderated discussions. 

Book it/Singapore Fringe Festival

Where: Various venues
When: Jan 15 to 25, various times
Admission: Tickets at $38 from

sgfringe.bigtix.io

. Panel discussions are free with registration
Info:

str.sg/9eJYH