Wichaya Artamat / For What Theatre This Song Father Used to Sing (Three Days in May)

Born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1985, Wichaya Artamat is a theatre director and member of For What Theatre. After graduating Thammasat University, where he majored in film, he subsequently became captivated by live performances and started working in theater as a project coordinator for Bangkok Theatre Festival in 2008. He joined the New Theatre Society in 2009, where he became a director recognised for various experimental forms and unconventional theatrical approaches. Artamat is especially interested in exploring how society remembers and un-remembers history through certain calendar days. He co-founded For What Theatre in 2015, he is also a member of Sudvisai Club and Collective Thai Scripts. His works In Ther’s View: a Documentary Theatre and Three Days in May were awarded Best Play by the International Association of Theatre Critics Thailand Centre (IATC) in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

For What Theatre is a group of three theater makers from three different existing theater troupes: Wichaya Artamat of New Theatre Society, Sasapin Siriwanij of B-Floor Theatre, and Ben Busarakamwong of Crescent Moon Theatre. The collective has been continuously producing artistic works in various forms, including theater, live performance, story telling, puppetry, party, and exhibition. Among their wide range of creations are 6th PARTY Re:Re:Khaosarn, 3 Days in May, Little Red in The Ruins, What We Talk About When We Don't Talk About the Elephant in the Room, Sand Castle Party | a Journey Performance, and Oh! Ode (Oh! What Joy, What Goodness, What Beauty Calls For Ode No.7012). The three come together, as the group's name suggests, to question their own practices, as well as explore deeper into the variety of artistic forms and processes that can serve to convey social, political, gender, and religious and faith issues. For What Theatre is in a way like a playground, a laboratory, and a free space to pose questions and find answers that they have for themselves and their society.