Girl Talk: How to Build a Friendship

About the Programme 

How do creators translate authentic emotional truths into compelling storytelling and characters? Join playwright Faith Ng, filmmaker Gladys Ng and writer Carissa Foo as they deep dive into the unspoken codes and dynamics of girl friendships and share how these are reflected in their creative works!  

Drawing on their experience crafting characters and scenes across the stage, screen and page, they'll discuss how to capture the depth and complexity in ties between girls, and what these reveal about friendship, identity and social dynamics. Expect insights on friendships in all their forms, from tender and nurturing to clumsy and competitive. 

About the Speakers 

Carissa Foo teaches literature and writes fiction. She received her Doctorate from Durham University, with a focus on 20th-century women’s writing. Her writing and research interests include love studies and modes of feminine relationality. She is the author of the short-story collection, No Wonder, Women (Penguin RH SEA); her latest novel is Almost A Love Story, published by Epigram Books in 2025. 

Gladys Ng is a filmmaker from Singapore. Her works are often nuanced, subtle, and interspersed with wry humour, some of which are The Pursuit of a Happy Human Life, Still Is Time, and Every Floor Looks the Same. Most of her short films are hosted on the Objectifs Film Library. 

Faith Ng is a playwright and Associate Artistic Director of Checkpoint Theatre. Her plays include Hard Mode (2024) which won Best Original Script at the ST Life Theatre Awards 2025 and is now a new text for 'O' Levels Literature in English from 2028 onwards; The Fourth Trimester (2025, 2022), which won Best Original Script and Production of the Year at the ST Life Theatre Awards 2023, A Good Death (part of Esplanade’s The Studios 2018), and Normal (2017, 2015). A Young Artist Award (2018) recipient, her collection of plays, Faith Ng: Plays Volume 1, was published by Checkpoint Theatre (2016).