Nabilah Said is an award-winning playwright, editor and artist who works with text as material. Her plays have been staged in Singapore and London. She is the founder of Main Tulis Group and Rupa co.lab, both of which centre the voice of Malay playwrights.
Nabilah's research interests lie at the intersection of gender, race and religion; shifting and minority communities; and dislocations and relocations of personal and geographic histories. Nabilah is interested in working in experimental, collaborative and care-centred ways. She’s presented work and collaborated with companies such as Teater Ekamatra, The Necessary Stage, T:<Works and The Theatre Practice, as well as independent creatives in Singapore and London.
ANGKAT, a commission of M1 Singapore Fringe 2019, won three awards including Best Original Script at the 2020 Life Theatre Awards, and is an official text of the National University of Singapore’s Singapore English Language Theatre module. Inside Voices won the Origins Award for Outstanding New Work at London’s VAULT Festival 2019, and is published by Nick Hern Books. Nabilah is currently under commission of Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, to write a play about Christmas Island, a place she has a personal connection to via her parents.
In 2018, she co-founded Lazy Native, an international theatre collective that champions Southeast Asian narratives. Nabilah was the artist-in-residence for Teater Ekamatra in 2016/2017 and writer-in-residence for Sing Lit Station in 2018/2019. In 2015, she was chosen by the National Arts Council to represent Singapore for the Southeast Asia Literary Council drama retreat in Indonesia. Nabilah is frequently invited to speak at events, festivals and panels in Singapore and around the world. She occasionally serves as a dramaturg and producer for shows and programmes.
Nabilah works as the Editorial Lead at award-winning data-storytelling studio Kontinentalist. She has over 13 years’ experience in the media and creative/corporate communications sectors, including being a former arts correspondent for The Straits Times. As the editor of ArtsEquator from 2019-2022, she wrote, edited and published 200-300 pieces of original content a year, working with and mentoring creatives from Southeast Asia. She co-hosted a regular podcast about Singapore theatre, the ArtsEquator Theatre Podcast. She has worked at institutions such as Singapore Art Museum and National Heritage Board, and creative agencies; and designed fundraising projects for Teater Ekamatra.
In 2023, Nabilah has the privilege to serve as a member on the boards of literacy non-profit ReadAble and arts company Bahri & Co.
Nabilah is a freelance contributor of media platforms such as Exeunt Magazine and Esplanade.com. Her essays, short stories and poems have been published by Ethos Books, Landmark Books and Math Paper Press. She has also worked as a freelance editor and copywriter for clients such as Ethos Books, SCENE SHANG and Prep Luxe.
Nabilah enjoys teaching. She designed and teaches playwriting modules for Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts since 2019. She designed and teaches an arts criticism module at LASALLE College of the Arts since 2020. She has conducted and participated in talks, workshops and masterclasses with partners including Cultural Economy Development Agency (Malaysia), ASWARA Malaysia, Goethe-Institut Singapore, School of the Arts Singapore, Festival/Tokyo and Singapore Writers Festival.
Nabilah has a Masters in Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London, as a recipient of the Tan Ean Kiam Postgraduate Scholarship in the Humanities in 2017/2018. In 2020, she was recognised as an outstanding alumna of Goldsmiths.