Theatre theft and Back to School
Grand Theft Theatre by Pony Cam and David Williams
Like: So much. The meta-ness, the invitation to share and connect, the joy of sharing memories, and just the reminder that yes, theatre, and all these small moments created are so important, stay with us forever, do change lives. Fun and mess and WORK. Exciting theatre-makers in their physical prime. Also seeing the matinee with hundreds of teenagers was excellent and really shook up the Adelaide Festival vibez.
Learning: I often write closed plays (fourth wall firmly up), but I so enjoyed the generosity of this more open theatrical experience. There are other ways! It’s ok to sign post, to come in and out of the “scene”, to connect directly with the audience and just tell them where they are and what’s happening next, to create an experience rather than a closed world.
Visiting Flinders University and Dr Sarah Peters
Not a show, just an amazing day sitting in on Sarah Peters’ second year theatre class. Sarah is an incredible verbatim theatre maker and human being. It was such a privilege to watch her teach! Some excellent take-aways from her lesson on audiences:
What is the language of your target audience? What matters to your target audience? What technologies? This got me thinking about young people and phones, and how we can use honour the language and worlds created there.
Representation - are you aiming to validate or challenge your audience? Maybe both?
How do you create Realness so that your audience feels seen? How do you expose hidden realities through “deception” (meaning artistic abstraction/metaphor/theatricality)? What is “the lie that tells the truth”?
Hopefully I will come and virtually talk to her students next term about the experience so far of making Life is Swift, as their topic is community informed theatre-making.
Now I kind of want to do my masters at Flinders just to hang out with Sarah…
