A metatheatrical musical discovering love beyond the romance it promises.

It’s a known fact that there is simply not enough lesbian representation in media And far too often, when it does appear, it comes freighted with emotional torture, tragedy, and pain. When, one wonders, do the lesbians finally get their happy ending?

That’s a wrong Woody Avenue hopes to make right with its debut production, A Lesbian Love Story: The Musical. Co-written and co-directed by founders Rosie McGowan and Kluane Saunders, the show wears its ambitions plainly in its title. It bears the burden of representation head-on, promising loving nods to queer stereotypes, pop culture, and musical theatre traditions along the way.

Framed as a play-within-a-play, the musical centres on arts producer Charlie (Natalie Yeap), who simply wants to write a lesbian love story with a happy ending. With the help of her best friend Chris (Mitchell Fang), that fantasy comes alive onstage. We then trace the life of a fictionalised, self-insert version of Charlie as she meets the perfect girlfriend and glides through an all-too-perfect relationship arc.

What follows is a series of twee, saccharine-sweet scenes charting Charlie’s life from lonely app-swiping, to a potentially treacherous bar encounter, to being rescued and swept off her feet by the oh-so-charming Zo (Coco Wang Ling, believable, powerful and dominant). Hearts ignite, the sex is mindblowingly good, and marriage even looms on the horizon.

But as Chris rightly points out, what’s the appeal of a story where everything goes smoothly and there is absolutely no conflict? The more he probes and pokes holes in Charlie’s vision, the more defensive and agitated she becomes. Eventually, the truth surfaces: Charlie has been hiding a secret, and when it comes to light, she spirals into a depressive hole. Even the escapism of a happy lesbian musical can no longer sustain her, becoming corrupted by her own insecurities.

A Lesbian Love Story deserves plaudits for its boldness. Radical not only in its metatheatrical framing, it gleefully plays with, references, and subverts the musical theatre form to underline its themes: the importance of platonic love, and the difficulty of being queer in a world shaped by heteronormative desires and expectations that exist even within the LGBTQ community itself.

Where the show falters is in execution and development. Too often, it feels like a workshop version rather than a fully realised piece. While the songs are inventive, drawing from R&B through to classic showtunes, they lack memorability and rarely allow the cast to showcase the full range of their vocal talents. There are moments where ensemble member Melissa May Garcia, who appears to have the strongest voice in the cast, seems poised to deliver a showstopping note, only for the song’s structure to cut that momentum short.

Especially in the first half, there is also a noticeable lack of incidental music and clear leitmotifs to cement the show’s musical identity. Its stylistic diversity becomes an impediment: melodies are introduced only to be abandoned before they can lodge themselves in the audience’s memory.

Similarly, while the show breaks new ground in its frank depiction of lesbian life, even referencing and depicting scissoring, it sometimes feels weighed down by the burden of representation. The fictionalised segments are lively and specific, from knowing in-jokes to a ‘proposal’ with a house key clipped to a carabiner. But after frontloading these playful sequences, the “real-life” scenes feel comparatively thin.

The show then, seems pulled in too many directions. In trying to do everything, it loses a fundamental anchor: character. Removed from the grand spectacle that can disguise thin writing in more traditional musicals, A Lesbian Love Story leans heavily on shorthand and reference rather than fully fleshed-out personalities. Charlie is defined by her circumstances: a lesbian seeking happiness, fragile and scarred by familial rejection. Natalie Yeap plays the role with earnestness, but Charlie herself remains more a vessel for ideas than a vividly realised individual, and there are times it’s hard to lean into the show’s sincerity when so much of it has been taken lightly, and even the low moments feel more like performance than lived experience.

Chris, meanwhile, is a non-binary, chain-dating queer best friend who flirts dangerously with the “gay best friend” archetype. Mitchell Fang plays the role with evident joy, but the character never quite achieves deuteragonist status despite significant stage time. There are tantalising hints of deeper conflict, particularly in Chris’s rejection of heteronormative ideals like marriage, yet these threads are never fully explored.

By the final moments, the show’s radical promise of queer joy-for-joy’s-sake gives way to a more familiar resolution. Healing comes with time, wounds close, and platonic friends who were there all along are welcomed back. It’s a gentle, almost muted ending for such an audacious premise, concluding on a whisper rather than a triumphant high.

In essence, A Lesbian Love Story: The Musical constantly flirts with the genre, delighting in theatrical tricks and charming song-and-dance numbers. It’s a show with a strong, timely concept and a sincere want to connect, but one that needs more time in the oven, with the hope of stronger, more memorable musical numbers, more assertively drawn characters, and a sharper sense of what it wants to say about breaking cycles of queer sadness in media.

For now, though, the cast is clearly having fun, and so is the sold-out audience, many of whom appear to be first-time or rare theatregoers. Perhaps that, in itself, is the most tangible spark of queer joy this work ignites, and a sign that with further development, it could grow into something truly special.

Photo Credit: Crispian Chan

A Lesbian Love Story: The Musical plays from 15th to 17th January 2026 at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. Tickets are sold out.

Singapore Fringe Festival 2026 runs from 15th to 25th January 2026. Tickets and more information available here

Support the Fringe by donating to The Necessary Stage here

Production Credits

Co-director/Lead Producer/Co-playwright Rosie McGowan, Kluane Saunders Composer Henry Allen Arranger Isabella Guillar Cast Natalie Yeap, Coco Wang Ling, Mitchell Fang, Melissa May Garcia Intimacy Director Rayann Condy Associate Producer Lim Shien Hian Choreographer Alex Kong Musical Director/Keys Jane Foo Drummer Jamie Lee Stage Manager Deena Shaqinah Assistant Stage Manager/Assistant Intimacy Director/Props Coordinator Cheryl Lee Set Design/Construction Amin Ali Sound Designer/Operator Usaid Abdul Rashid Lighting Designer/Operator Mohamed Asmar Wardrobe Coordinator Claire Wright