A Mini-Theatre in the Bush – Landscapes Theatre Part 4
On Tuesday August 20th, we visited Brian Fidler’s property in Wolf Creek where every year he hosts Ramshackle Theatre’s Theatre in the Bush. To imagine possibilities and the future, it’s crucial to understand and experience what is happening now.
Theatre in the Bush is a signature event for Ramshackle and the people of Whitehorse. In the bush behind his house, there is a path that leads through different sites - each one unique small performance sites.
Each fall, Brian invites the artists, who then randomly select which site they’re going to use for their 10 minute performance. A week later the audience arrives. The annual event sells out every October in a matter of hours.
For the residency, we decided to do our own mini-Theatre in the Bush. After a tour of the sites, we broke into trios, picked a site at random and had 2 hours to make something to share.
Jacob’s Process Notes:
This kind of rapid prototyping and experiential learning is a core element of my theatre training and is now - in the form of design thinking, hack-a-thons and sprints - being recognized as an effective way to practice collaboration, surface ideas and test options. Also, with the right attitude it’s very fun. And we had good attitudes.
The short performances may have been a little rough around the edges, but the sense of play and creativity was everywhere and they were some of my favorite Theatre in the Bush pieces I’ve ever seen.
In the conversations after, people spoke of the power of “just starting” and the surprises and delights that occurred when co-creating in the environment. We were able to inspire and be inspired by the trees, grass and sun - not only by the suggestions of collaborators or our own clever ideas (which are rarely as clever as we think.)
Theatre in the Bush offers a valuable model for theatre at the scale of the landscape. Even in a mini form, it created wonder and enchantment in just an afternoon. It’s a model we will return to.
Photo by Erik Pinkerton Photography