COMMUNITY PLAY

In a Community Play ordinary people take the stage as actors and co-creators. The purpose is to give voice to groups of citizens whose stories rarely have the opportunity to be heard on stage and in the public sphere in general. The keywords for this format are the live encounter and citizen involvement. A driving force for a new, deeper understanding between people despite their differences. Theatre becomes a unifying, expansive, and exploratory force.

Through an intense process, the stories, thoughts, dreams and hopes of the citizens are staged within professional artistic frameworks. The professionals provide guidance, challenges, and encouragement for the participants to immerse themselves in the wondrous world of theatre. Their stories are dramatized and transformed into unique scenic images that balance the edge of reality and fiction. As such, they are not only acting in the conventional sense, but also bringing a fragment of their world onto the stage. The strength of creating such productions lies in the fact that it is these “ordinary people” who are on stage together.

Community Play is a citizen-engaging, local community involving theatre that promotes diversity in representation, narratives, and experiences. Everyone becomes a valuable resource. And everyone gains something born out of the magic of theatre – a belief in themselves, the awareness that they are needed, and that their presence contributes to a community where everybody has the opportunity to grow individually and as part of a group.

Community Play opens up a world of empathy, tolerance, and mutual understanding, creating a profound connection between the audience and the performers. It is work with the noblest aim of theatre: to uplift as a collective. Community Play has the power to transform those who participate in the project. The participants will discover entirely new and hidden resources within themselves, while the audience gains insights into how the world appears from a completely different perspective than their own.