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The Moon’s a Balloon. Patch Theatre Company. Adelaide, Australia. Photo by Dave Brown.
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Just two years after I set out to create my first piece of Theatre for the Very Young (TVY) as part of The Cohen New Works Festival at The University of Texas at Austin, I found myself traveling to Adelaide, Australia to observe the development process being undertaken by Patch Theatre Company (Patch) for The Moon’s a Balloon . Under the direction of Artistic Director Dave Brown, Patch creates visual theatre especially designed for audience members 4 to 8 years old. Finding myself with the unique opportunity to learn from an internationally recognized company with over forty years of theatre-making experience, I hoped to leave Adelaide better able to answer questions I had been wrestling with about TVY since I first began my research two years prior. Among my many questions, two in particular rose to the forefront. First, I was constantly pondering how to go about scripting visual theatre and hopeful that Patch may provide me a model to work with based on how they script their pieces. Visual theatre is centered on the use of movement, as performers communicate information, relationships, and emotions primarily through use of their bodies. Visual theatre is not necessarily silent or non-verbal; it may contain spoken word, music, or multimedia. However, the essential meaning of any visual theatre piece transpires through its visual vernacular so traditional scriptwriting processes don’t seem to work. Previously I had seen written narratives, intricate diagrams showing movement patterns, and stick figure drawings that detailed each performer’s actions throughout a piece. However, none of these ‘scripts’ seemed to capture both the essence of the story being told and the specifics of the movement. My second question lie in why visual theatre was chosen as the form to serve audiences specifically between 4 to 8 years old, since my experience with visual theatre prior to exploring
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TVY was largely tied to serving deaf and hard of hearing audiences. I could also understand how visual theatre eliminated the language barrier highly verbal theatre pieces may hold for the youngest audiences or when seeing theatre produced outside one’s native language, but with Patch designed to serve 4- to 8-year-olds within their own country I was curious to find out why visual theatre was the artistic form chosen. In my time in Adelaide I was able to begin answering my questions. In a conversation soon after I arrived Brown pointed out to me that children between 4 to 8 years old are at a critical age of imagination and possibility, making visual theatre an ideal choice as children can layer on their own interpretations. This quickly answered one of my questions, as I began to notice the focus Brown placed on keeping the piece under development openended enough to allow opportunities for meaning-making and varied interpretations among the audience members. Brown reminded the artistic team on several occasions that details of the narrative being layered on were meant to help the team remain on the same page and did not necessarily need to be overtly communicated to the audience. However as my time observing at Patch came to a close, my question about how to script visual theatre was left unanswered. At the time I was in Adelaide, Patch was still in their creative development process for The Moon’s a Balloon, so I left thinking that perhaps
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The Moon’s a Balloon. Patch Theatre Company. Adelaide, Australia. Photo by Dave Brown.
scripting was not yet necessary. Throughout my time I had seen how Brown videoed segments of work, later watching the video with performers so they could discuss and revise the movement they had previously established. This certainly served the creative development process but was not what I would consider a ‘script’ for the piece. While I learned that the performers who take part in the creative development of a piece are granted first refusal rights on future performances, understudies and replacements are often put into Patch’s shows when touring in later seasons. So I assumed, ultimately a script must be created so it could be passed along to these replacement performers to prepare them to step into Patch’s visual theatre pieces. Three months after my trip to Adelaide, we welcomed Brown to The University of Texas at Austin for a six-day residency that would culminate in a workshop production of a visual theatre piece based off of Patch’s The Moon’s a Balloon. This performance, titled The Balloon Project, would be geared for 3- to 8-year-olds. In order to create The Balloon Project, Brown and I led the performers through devising exercises
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similar to the ones used to create The Moon’s a Balloon. The performers also listened to music clips from Patch’s production, as this would be the soundtrack used for The Balloon Project as well. After creating and sequencing their own ideas for movement, the performers would go back and watch video from The Moon’s a Balloon to see if they wanted to make any changes or use any of the established movement. However, with The Balloon Project focused on exploring the devising process used rather then remounting The Moon’s a Balloon, no script was given to the cast. I left The Balloon Project, just like The Moon’s a Balloon, with many ideas on how to create and develop visual theatre for young audiences, but little information on how one becomes the playwright of this work. In July 2013 I would finally get to see how Brown ‘scripts’ his visual theatre work in Singapore. There, Brown was working with the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay on a remount of The Moon’s a Balloon they had chosen to re-title mOOn ballOOn. I observed the second of three phases that would lead up to the performance of mOOn ballOOn. The first phase was a planning
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phase, where a local creative team was assembled in Singapore and other logistics were put into place. This second phase would include Brown transitioning Patch’s The Moon’s a Balloon to the Singaporean performers. I stood by and watched as Brown shared his process. Just as I had seen during The Balloon Project Brown first shared the music and talked through the overall story of each segment. Next, the performers would watch video clips of The Moon’s a Balloon noting specific movements or cues within the music. Last, the performers would take to the rehearsal floor and move through segments beat by beat until they were ready to run each scene with music. Brown would give notes, just as he had when I observed The Moon’s a Balloon or as we had during The Balloon Project, working alongside the actors to refine their movements, the sequences, and the story. Essentially, I realized that Brown was reading the performers the “script,” a script he had created alongside his team at Patch. He stood in the room sharing the emotions, the movement vocabulary, and the details that brought these characters to life with the new cast. While the video helped to shape movement and refine moments technically, it took a depth of understanding in the story for this play to come to life. As it turned out much of what became the script lived in Brown’s mind, his storytelling and prompting were needed alongside video clips to aid with cues and the technique behind the movement for this play to be brought to life in a new location.
specificity and ownership that comes from a depth of understanding that perhaps can only come from human connection. Maybe visual theatre-making is a chance to embrace some of the things that make theatre unique. Maybe in making visual theatre we can embrace the sense of community a performance can create, the ability to connect with individuals in meaningful ways, and the thrill that lie in the unpredictable nature of live performance. Ultimately what I have come to realize is that not all who create stories for the stage can be defined as playwrights. Among the many titles listed on his CV, I don't see playwright anywhere, yet Dave Brown is bringing new meaning to the idea of writing locally then playing globally. Over the past year I have had the pleasure of engaging in moments of play alongside Brown in three different continents. The two of us have been found balancing balloons on our foreheads, making up songs about imaginary creatures, considering the best way to fall when an eight foot balloon knocks into you, or designing art projects that involve only lines and circles. While often amusing, this is also all serious work. This work that involved hours of planning, numerous re-stagings, and countless popped balloons. It is work that has shifted how I define myself, acknowledging that while I create theatre, I am not a playwright. Perhaps even more importantly, I don’t feel the need to be. Instead I have begun using the same terminology as Brown, as I now proudly refer to myself as a theatre-maker.
What I have come to see is that written scripts may not be the best way to serve the work of visual theatre.
After we left Singapore, local director Ian Loy took over the piece, working with the local creative team to bring mOOn ballOOn fully to life as part of the Octoburst children’s festival. Brown was there to provide the script, to pass along the story that had been created and the movement vocabulary that was established. Then the memorized play was passed along to a local creative team who will bring a new iteration of The Moon’s a Balloon to life. I had my second answer. I’m no longer searching for a way to script my visual theatre work, at least not in a traditional sense. What I have come to see is that written scripts may not be the best way to serve the work of visual theatre. What makes truly great visual theatre is the
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Bethany Lynn Corey is currently the Early Learners Manager at The Thinkery in Austin having recently received her MFA in Drama and Theatre for Youth & Communities from the University of Texas at Austin. Much of her research at UT Austin surrounded the use of drama and theatre for children under the age of six. Bethany's work in Theatre for the Very Young has led to the creation of the SPARK! Theatre Ensemble, which produces original theatre pieces intentionally designed for the youngest audiences. Bethany has worked nationally and internationally as an actress, director, and teaching artist. She holds a dual B.A. in Music and Theatre for Children and Public Communications from American University. She served as the chair of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education's International Network and was awarded the 2013 Ann Shaw Fellowship. Currently Bethany is developing work in partnership with Trike Theatre and with SPARK! Theatre.
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