The Drawing

The Drawing

co-creator (writer/director/performer)

A choose-your-own adventure theatre work by young people

The Drawing takes audiences on an adventure through a magical house that celebrates the astonishing imaginations of the children who helped bring it to life. Each room is its own universe – a boat on an endless ocean, a snow factory, or a field of grass under a technicolour sky. It’s an original work made by kids, for kids drawing from fairy tales, TV and video games. Equipped with a bag of colourful dry mess, viewers vote at various points in the show to influence what choices the characters make. The feather a viewer throws onstage to vote may become falling snow in the next scene, or possibly a leaf from a magical tree. No two shows will ever be the same! It’s Hansel and Gretel meets Minecraft meets Willy Wonka in this vibrant, fast paced and surprising contemporary piece of theatre for children of all ages… including those over 18!

The Drawing was Chris’ first project working with Natalie Rose to facilitate a group of young people in the creation of an original piece of theatre. The journey began in 2013 at Shopfront Arts Co-Op, where the initial idea was developed in collaboration with its Junior Ensemble. This was expanded throughout 2014 and presented twice in 2015 at Blacktown Arts (through support from the Australia Council for the Arts) and PACT (through support from City of Sydney). Over this time, three separate groups of children were engaged from Shopfront, Blacktown and City of Sydney, who each influenced the work through performance, devising and design workshops, as well as participating in the final shows. For such a large number of children to be represented in a “story that is increasingly sinister, elaborate and compiled with pop-cultural references in possibly just the way you’d expect a work made ‘by kids for kids’ to be” (Bryoni Trezise, Realtime) is the real success of The Drawing.