TOOLS: Theatricality Workshop Series

This workshop explores the fundamentals and false binary of theatricality. We'll spend some time defining and redefining theatricality, reviewing tools and approaches to explore it, and, after some discussion, put our knowledge to the test with thought experiments and live performance.

This workshop investigates the remapping process, in which one thing stands in for another and real-world elements correspond to their stage-space equivalents. What happens when a set is realistic vs. pantomimed? Or when a flower represents a weapon, vice versa? We'll examine the audience's role in recognizing these substitutions and experiment with how to teach and sustain them.

This workshop explores the dichotomy between when something actually happens on stage and when it appears to happen. What's the difference between a character really eating, fighting, or swimming, versus the play tricking the audience into thinking they really did any of that? And what happens when we let the audience in on the trick? We'll test how far we can push in both directions.

The boundary between the stage and the audience defines theatre's magic. What happens when we reinforce this boundary? Or when we cross it? And what happens to the play (and characters within) if it becomes self-aware? This workshop explores the fourth wall, its purpose, rules, and experimentations.

The container of a play is more than its structure; it's how space and time interact to guide the audience's understanding of the work, and in turn, how the work itself functions. In this workshop, we'll explore theatrical convention through scene intervals, transitions, and disjunctions, and what happens when we remove or heighten these elements.