Bringing together three internationally acclaimed playwrights, Jarunun Phantachat (Thailand), Ahilan Karunaharan (New Zealand) and S. Shakthidharan (Australia) this conversation explores how people, place, and politics are conjured on the page and brought to life on stage. These plays navigate collective memory, identity, and culture across borders, opening nuanced dialogues about how communities connect, remember, and imagine themselves in different global contexts and futures.

Hosted by Tessa Leong, Artistic Director of CAAP, the discussion will delve into their writing processes, the role of place in shaping stories, and how audiences in different contexts receive and respond to their plays.

Presented in partnership with Kyoto Experiment, this special event is born out of the International Asian Playwrights Focus, a network of cultural leaders across festivals and organisations in Asia with a mission to bring Asian and diaspora stories to international stages. The Focus is committed to building connections for Asian Playwrights, creating networks for them outside their home countries. This begins a series of events across the region over the coming year among the cohort.

The conversation will be in English.

Acknowledgement

CAAP is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW, and assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body.

The International Asian Playwrights Focus was formed in 2024 and comprises of: Seoul Performing Arts Festival (South Korea), National Theatre and Concert Hall (Taiwan), West Kowloon Cultural District (Hong Kong), Kyoto Experiment (Japan), SquareSums&Co and Satellites (New Zealand) and Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (Australia).

Contact the host of Writing Places Real and Imagined