THE LAST STAGE Aquation Theatre
Photo by Aurel Msy
THE LAST STAGE Aquation Theatre officially opened its doors during GOLDEN (r)AGE Performing Art Festival Year 1, inaugurating the space with The Last Great Ape, a circus solo performance by Dara Heng, a Cambodian circus artist and actor from Phare Ponleu Selpak in Battambang, created with Karim Belkacem Saadi.
It was a fitting beginning: a powerful, physical, and emotionally charged performance that gave the new venue an immediate sense of identity. The opening did not feel ceremonial in the formal sense. It felt alive. The space was not simply presented to the public; it was activated.
The building itself already carries a certain magic. Before becoming a theatre, it was a two-floor bar and restaurant with an enclosed inner courtyard and a stage for musicians. Even before its transformation, it had the atmosphere of a gathering place: intimate, layered, slightly hidden from the street, and full of potential. In that sense, it recalls the early artistic cabarets of France, places where performance, nightlife, conversation, risk, and experimentation could exist in the same breath.
Over time, the bar closed, and the venue’s owner began searching for a way to make the space breathe again. At the same moment, The Last Stage and The Acting Art Academy were looking for something Cambodia’s performing arts scene urgently needed: a real theatre. Not just a rented hall or a temporary room, but a dedicated space with a proper stage, an elaborate lighting system, and the capacity to host professional performances for up to 170 audience members.
The needs aligned. From that meeting point, THE LAST STAGE Aquation Theatre was born.
What makes the space compelling is not only its architecture, but what it represents. In Cambodia, artistic spaces often emerge through necessity, improvisation, and speed. There is a sense that things must be done now, not later, not when conditions are perfect, not when institutions finally appear. This urgency gives the country’s creative scene a particular energy: raw, fast-paced, sometimes fragile, but deeply passionate.
Travelling through Cambodia, one often feels this force. There is an authenticity in the way people try to build, repair, transform, and make things happen. THE LAST STAGE Aquation Theatre carries that same spirit. It is not a neutral black box. It is a place with a past, now redirected toward performance. A former social space becoming an artistic one. A closed venue given a second life.
After its inauguration, the theatre is set to become one of the important stages for The Last Stage’s upcoming seasons. Major productions announced for the 2026 season include Amour by Joël Pommerat, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, and Tum Teav, the legendary Cambodian love story rooted in Khmer oral tradition and later popularized through the 1915 poem by the Buddhist monk Botumthera Som.
With these works, THE LAST STAGE Aquation Theatre positions itself as a bridge between worlds: Cambodian and international, classical and contemporary, popular memory and experimental theatre. It is a space built not only to host performances, but to shape a new chapter in Cambodia’s live arts movement.
Full house audience! Photo by Aurel Msy
