Scaling Australian intermedial theatre: towards a new design methodology for sustainable performance creation and touring of complex visual theatre

Abstract

ABSTRACT Australian intermedial theatre is facing mounting pressure to adapt to complex geographical challenges posed by the country’s size while simultaneously responding to the global climate crisis. Ongoing research between Australian theatre makers and academics seeks to address these manifold concerns, combining qualitative and practice-led approaches in an effort to produce a new framework to support the creation of sustainable, tourable intermedial theatre. We suggest the key to this framework lies in a new conception of ‘scale’ in scenography – the capacity of a production to contract and expand to its surroundings without the need for change in the original design, to be physically and aurally flexible throughout its lifespan. This article presents the initial findings from our multi-year research, and the first step towards the final framework: a new design methodology, grounded in the notion of scale, designed to shift intermedial practice towards a more sustainable, flexible model of touring complex technical theatre. Contextualised by ongoing discussions of the performative scenographic model and grounded in a pragmatic view of technology as solution to the climate crisis, this article shares the nascent design methodology that emerged from Dead Puppet Society’s Ishmael (2021) and its impact on scenographic process and product.