Out of the Box Theatre
is the brainchild of PHOENX, the creative team of Phoenix Functions. Out of the Box Theatre is a writing / design workshop for groups for the facilitation of discourse around a community challenge. Out of the Box Theatre is based on the premise that social structures segregate various groups from each other, limiting our ability to find solutions. The workshops ask participants to take a detached and empathetic view of an issue of their choosing, through the eyes of a number of characters that have a stake in that issue. By exploring characters with diverse views and actions around an issue, Out of the Box Theatre workshops help participants construct new communication approaches and strategic action around an issue. Out of the Box theatre workshops support the development of a new, desegregating form of theatre, and, as in theatre also in life.Out of the Box Theatre uses a play floor, and real boxes, providing a flexible and ready structuring for this facilitation type of theatre. Participants use the boxes, and other facilitated imagery, to structure a theatrical landscape for the movement of characters and the progression of the story line. At a metaphorical level, out of the box points to the displaying of various perspectives on the issue, especially those hidden (subtext) within individuals and the cultural background, bringing them out of the box. By looking at external agents, participants are challenged to look at their own boxes, and to look at various pathways that multiple agents might follow in their interaction within a storyline. Real explorations will undermine cliches of dualist personalities in story, and, rather than happy ever after resolutions, real possibilities are sought. However, it is expected that participants will feel increased empathy for all types of characters, attitudes, behaviours, and thereby find insight into strategies for ongoing endeavour towards peaceful resolutions of social challenges.
Risk was the first theme taken on by PhoenX to design the model for Out of the Box Theatre workshops and productions.
PhoenX began by looking at three aspects of Risk in the community:
The script research and writing process led to a rough script we called "Seven Rotations of Risk". Experienced actors workshopped this product into a single short performance, Risk, exhibiting the perceptions of risk in a nuclear family regarding the aspirations of a teenager.
The process provided invaluable lessons on group script writing, facilitation of a group workshop in script writing, minimalist set building, acting workshop, and overall team work. As the overarching purpose of the product is to facilitate groups to working across social barriers toward a solution for community problems, the lessons are positive to that process.
Supported by the Regional Arts Development Fund, a Queensland Government and Tablelands Regional Council Partnership to support local arts and culture. Arts Queensland
