Established in 1989 by Joe Hasham, OAM and Dato’ Faridah Merican, The Actors Studio Malaysia has had a long and illustrious history of enriching lives by improving access to the arts.

From its role in the founding of the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, the Performing Arts Centre of Penang and other theatre spaces, to initiatives such as Seni Teater Rakyat and The Actors Studio Academy with its various outreach programmes, The Actors Studio has sought to bring theatre closer to the people, inculcating deeper cross-cultural understanding among Malaysians and tackling worthy social issues.

In line with the National Arts and Culture department’s efforts to ‘merakyatkan seni’, The Actors Studio Seni Teater Rakyat aims to break the barrier between the arts and the people. It also collaborates with other groups to present new work such as Lee Wushu’s “Farewell, My Concubine” (2011) which was a combination of martial arts and dance as well as the Young KL Singers’ “Together As One” (2011) which was a concert featuring sacred songs from different religions around the world. In 2015, the programme features 3 restagings of hit productions from The Actors Studio – Philadelphia Here I Come, Broken Bridges, and Rashomon.

The Actors Studio Academy@klpac is an integral part of The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre. The academy has run close to 200 courses for more than 2,500 students of all ages from children to adults and has a wide range of courses for children through to adults such as children’s theatre, acting, directing, writing, dance, vocal and gamelan. Visiting artistes also often conduct workshops and master classes that benefit both local performers and the pub