A Speech & Drama Outreach Programme with IDEAS Academy

The Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival 2018 is themed “You, Me + The Arts” to focus on including and empowering different communities of people through the arts. Leading up to the festival’s Finale Weekend, we conducted an outreach programme with students from IDEAS Academy.

Recently, The Actors Studio Academy @ klpac launched a special speech and drama outreach programme for students of IDEAS Academy.

IDEAS Academy is a secondary learning centre for underprivileged children, including those who are refugees, stateless and undocumented. The academy was officially launched in 2014, and currently hosts more than 100 students.

On 4 May 2018, we held auditions to shortlist these students to be part of the outreach programme. Students were each given a special monologue to be prepared and presented to a panel of judges. Fifteen teenagers were shortlisted from five countries, including Myanmar, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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“The auditionees show a lot of potential. I am excited to work with them on the upcoming devised piece based on their views of the world.”

Mark Beau de Silva, Resident Director / Writer of klpac

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The outreach programme aims to train these students between the ages of 13 and 16 in enhancing their speaking and acting abilities. Using these acquired skills, the students will devise short skits to narrate some of their personal stories and experiences.

After completing their training and rehearsals, the final performance from IDEAS Academy will be presented at the Yayasan Sime Darby Arts Festival 2018 (#YSDAF2018) Finale weekend on 18 & 19 August at The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (klpac).

One of our core objectives for this speech and drama outreach programme is that it will lay the foundation for IDEAS Academy to expand these short skits into a full-length performance as part of the academy’s fundraising shows in the future.

The Actors Studio Academy @ klpac regularly runs outreach and customised programmes such as IDEAS Academy for schools and underprivileged communities. If you are interested to engage the Academy, please send an email to academy@klpac.org.

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