25 years of drama & delight for Singapore’s Centre Stage!

Founded in 1999 by UK actors and husband-and-wife team Peter Hodgson and Alison Tompkins, Centre Stage School of the Arts is one of Singapore’s most vibrant performing arts centres, empowering over a thousand children every year to build confidence and grow through the performing arts. We sat down with Peter and Alison to reflect on the past 25 years and the impact Centre Stage has made.

How did Centre Stage come to life?

We trained in acting and musical theatre at Guildford School of Acting (GSA) in the 1980’s – one of the few accredited drama schools in the UK. We have both always had an innate ability to understand and relate to children and young people, and we’d both done heaps of educational and children’s theatre. But when we added a teaching certificate to our training, we discovered the broader power of drama – specifically, how process-driven creative drama can nurture children’s self-esteem, empathy and communication skills.

When we first started Centre Stage in Singapore, it was just the two of us working from a single room rented by the hour from a parent who believed in what we were doing. Since then, Centre Stage has grown to include two centres – one at East Coast and one on Portsdown Road – and often hosts drama CCAs and workshops at AIS and all the other top international schools.

“Wow – twenty-five years! Yes, we’ve trained some amazing performing artists, but what we’re really about is building great people” Peter Hodgson, 2025

Why are performing arts classes important?

The pandemic drastically changed the way children in Singapore interact with each other, compromising socio-emotional skills learned during playtime. Wearing masks and increased online communication also resulted in them using their voices less, and we find that Singapore’s younger generation is generally more cautious when it comes to socialising and voicing their opinions.

In this light, the performing arts are critical in educating children for an uncertain world. Regardless of whether our students go on to work in the performing arts industry, we aim to empower every one of them to be confident creators – young adults who are flexible, adaptable, and resilient, with the communicative and interpersonal skills to excel in any vocation they choose.

By providing children with a structure to play out different situations and emotions, drama allows them to step out of their comfort zone and develop empathy. Most importantly, it provides them with a safe environment to make mistakes and be themselves – to try things, get them wrong, and try again. Beyond merely developing their communication skills, this challenging process empowers them with a lifelong confidence in their own voice and ideas – a rare trait in this age of social media and generative AI!

How does Centre Stage enrich lives?

Many of our students join Centre Stage at a young age and stay for more than a decade, advancing through drama classes and performing in yearly shows. It’s a pleasure watching them grow in confidence and skill, and an even greater joy when they visit years later as young adults. Our international alumni often describe Centre Stage as their safe space while growing up – a constant in their lives in Singapore, and a second home they can visit to relive childhood memories. While working together on theatre productions, students form lasting friendships across schools, forging bonds that often become a trusted support network well into university and early adulthood.

Notably, our alumni have gone on to achieve amazing things! Our former student Sophea Pennington is playing Lacey in Home and Away (2025), and we recently watched our alumni, Grace Angharad and Harry Mills, play Christine and the Phantom in the world tour of Phantom of the Opera. We couldn’t be prouder.
If we had to pick one thing that keeps us going, it is the children. We love working with kids, and we love that they can be themselves and have fun while picking up critical life skills. We are so proud of what Centre Stage has achieved as a team, and we can’t wait for what is to come in the next 25 years!