ABSTRACT
“Faith in a world of our making” follows the commissioning ideas into the hands of one of Canada’s most prominent and innovative theatre companies, the Electric Company Theatre, led in this case by Kevin Kerr. Here, a reflexivity about theatre as a ‘model of/model for’ Modernist conceptual frameworks inspires an attempt to eradicate theatre’s ‘fourth wall’ separating audience from art, subject from object. We track the development of You Are Very Star, an immersive, interactive theatre work, inspired by the commissioning document, which attempted to weave multiple storylines with multiple audiences together, such that one audience becomes the ‘object’ in another audience’s experience, and vice versa. This bold experiment carries its seasoned professionals into uncharted territory as they encounter the perils of leaving more familiar practices behind. A challenge, as we shall see, that entails as much practical innovation as it does aesthetic.
