It has been many days since we last ate. We barely manage to find some scrap of food here and there. These people, my people, my… tribe. I really hope we survive together.

A Tiny Country is a thought-provoking, experiential, playful, and exciting collective role-playing experience. The audience plays dual roles—one as a member of a community living in a tiny country who is invested in the country’s fate, and another as a social scientist who impartially experiments with the people’s future. The collective stories are woven through a person from the past, a present struggle, and a crisis in waiting.

The country has survived a long history of conflicts and threats. For the next decade, they come face to face with crossroads. Do they focus on harvesting natural resources or cultivating talents? Should they explore and expand or strengthen and defend? Do they unite or tear the country apart?

A Tiny Country was developed under Centre 42's Basement Workshop (now known as the Creation Residency). Read about Basement Workshop here.

Development Milestones

November 2019 - January 2020

In-Residence at Basement Workshop

by Centre 42

8 – 12 January 2020

World Premiere

Presented at Centre 42 Black Box

Part of M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2020.

Creation Process

Artist Statement

A Tiny Country is a special project especially for me. I’d recently come across a documentary about Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian island where a group of Malays reside. They practice Islam and similar Malay culture to us but yet speak with Australian accent. This makes me reflect upon my own relationship with the island I’m living on. What is my connection with this island? Why do I spend many years of my life, yearning for a place here when everything around me tells me to draw wisdom an foreign land elsewhere. How then, can I start telling my story, the story that starts with the place I call my home?

Development Process

This is an unique experience for us as it is the first time ATTEMPTS is working with an established playwright to write something participatory, forging a game while we are at it. C42 gives us the space to experiment and play with the ideas. Like all good games, one can only get better at repeated attempts at the game and tweaking the play. Right now, we are building, developing, writing, testing and rehearsing the performance as we speak. It has to run all at a go, which is the nature of spontaneous works.