Culture on the couch: theatre performed in homes
Home Theatre in Brazil
Th is month sees the broadcast of an ambitious international project featuring 30 new one-person shows performed in 30 homes across the capital. Organised by the theatre Royal Stratford East, the Home Theatre project aims to link boroughs with extremely low arts engagement to more a ffluent areas of the city, with artists working on the project taking inspiration from the stories of those hosting the performances in their own homes.
Run in partnership with the Festival Internacional de Cenas em Casa (International Festival of Home Theatre), the idea to bring Home Theatre to the UK was inspired by artistic director Kerry Michael’s trip to Brazil earlier this year.
“Home Theatre is about staging performances in people’s familiar surroundings. In a sense, we will be serving our audiences and letting them be our masters. It’s about telling great stories from across the capital,” he says.
“It’s also a great opportunity for artists and London audiences to come together, share a meal and have an open dialogue about their stories and the project.”
Exploring the relationship between art and audiences, Home Theatre extends the legacy of the theatre Royal Stratford’s East Open Stage project, a radical community-curated programme aimed at rede fining who decides and makes theatre and how it is made and presented.
The collaboration between the 30 hosts, artists and fi lmmakers should generate exciting new ideas and insights for staging and creating theatre outside of established venues and in the very heart of local communities.
For your viewing pleasure, a film of each bespoke performance will be released every 30 minutes on the theatre’s online performance platform and at the theatre itself as part of the Home Th eatre 30 x 30 digital event taking place on Saturday 9 November.