Season 4 approached the future as a space of collective action and radical possibility. Inspired by the idea that different futures can be imagined and enacted, the conversations explored how theatre can help shape more equitable, sustainable and transformative pathways forward.
“I’ve said it before—in contrast to those traditional stories that begin with ‘Once upon a time…’ Zapatista stories begin with ‘There will be a time…” – Subcomandante Galeano (formerly Marcos).
This season of Unrehearsed Futures is inspired by Galeano’s call to see the future as a vital space of action, in which the power to shape the present and thus create the future no longer remains concentrated in the hands of elites. As Galeano’s aphorism suggests, beginning the stories we tell about our lives, our ambitions and the world we want to be part of with “There will be a time…” calls on us to move away from our reflexive preoccupation with a past that remains unchanging and unchangeable, to insisting on a future that not only can but will be, in spite of that past. To begin a story with “There will be a time…” points us towards what late capitalist modernity and its systems of power would have remain unthinkable: that we have the capacity to determine and insist upon a different collective pathway for humanity and our planet.
This season, Unrehearsed Futures takes up this call to engage the future as an imaginative space of radical potential, where we not only name and negotiate the kinds of collective futures we desire based on our collective experience — what could be — to insisting on what will and must be as our point of departure, and from there, devising concrete strategies to manifest that future.
Kenyan theatre-maker Ogutu Muraya explores combinatorial play, post-election violence, colonial memory, and decomposition as transformative tools for storytelling and artistic self-discovery.
Lisa Suhair Majaj and Neo Muyanga examine art, language, and song as tools for naming apartheid in Palestine and amplifying resistance against oppression.
Lucy Hopkins and Saskia Solomons explore Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy as a radical, compassion-based framework for transforming theatre training and performance practice.
Akhila Khanna and Radha Ramaswamy revisit Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, exploring allyship, dialogue, and how T.O.’s spirit can be propagated in polarised, contemporary India
Ieva Česnulaitytė draws compelling parallels between citizen assemblies and devising rooms, exploring deliberative democracy as a tool for empathy, shared consensus, and civic agency.
Ghanaian trans artivist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi uses radical performance and guerrilla interventions to resist criminalisation, reclaim queer African identity, and sustain community through art.
Sarah Johnson, Amie Buhari, Sophie North, and Dr. Dzung Vo explore how creative practice, mindfulness, and intentional safe spaces can genuinely heal bodies and communities.
Practitioners revisit “White Colleagues Listen!” to assess progress on anti-racism, exploring spaciousness, race, and class beyond conventional classroom conversations.
Merlin Sheldrake and Marcus du Sautoy explore mycelial networks and AI as provocative metaphors for collective creativity, consciousness, and the future of theatre-making.
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