You and your family have been booked to attend a show called Alice in Wonderland, but there is a difference, instead of sitting in comfy seats in a theater you are embarking on a literal theatrical tour of the show.
Promenade theatre takes the audience from scene to scene, where they observe, or participate in the creative performance and theatrics. This theater can be site-specific, in an enclosed area or an open site. Performances are open to all age ranges, theatrical tastes and include all genres.
Best Suited Performance Genre for the Style
Creative performances that are best suited to promenade theater (PT) range from children’s theater, avant-garde, political, fringe, and even to conventional plays with a twist. Each scene takes place in a different part of the performance space, where the audience moves to.
Children’s plays lend themselves well to PT. Each scene could be be set up with characters who perform a particular part and so for instance, a lead character such as a Princess can conceivably take a group around each scene. The audience watches her interact with other characters as they move along. The process keeps going until all elements of the plot are revealed. The audience feels as though they are part of the performances, as they move through each scene.
Examples of MoveAbout Performances
Alice in Wonderland For Families
I myself (The author) have successfully used this type of theatre with Alice in Wonderland and Addadin (Genie and the Lamp). I have also seen this done well with Shakespeare’s A Mid Summers Night’s Dream in an open setting. Another There are plenty of different types of performances which can be dreamed up.
With Alice in Wonderland, we had 4 Alices ready to take a group around each scene. We did change up the scenes a little from the original book to make it work.
The scene began with Alice talking to her sister, she soon spots the White Rabbit who runs off saying…” I’m late, I’m late for a very important date!”, who leads her to the lawn where the Queen and King are playing Croquet with the Cards. From here Alice interacts with fun antics and then moves the action to the Cheshire Cat who is up the path behind a tree nearby.
While the third scene is playing, another Alice begins scene one with her sister and this continues the performance taking the new audience with her. This took about 40 minutes per each group to go through and was very popular.
The objective is to have two or three different scenes running at the same time. Having played the Doormouse in the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, as an actor, you play the same scene over and over. You do hear the other scenes larking about the audience clapping. However, you have to be on the lookout for your scene to begin again with a new Alice.
The Cons to this Particular Production
The cons to this type of theater are that the actors get act their own scene over and over again and don’t get a chance to see the other scenes. Also, the timing of the scenes needs to be congruent with the new scene starting w otherwise, you risk one group catching up with another. But once it’s going and you’ve timed it well, the play runs well and the audience love it.
Site Specific Performances
A Skull in Connemara an Irish play written by Martin McDonagh has character Mick Dowd who is perturbed at finding that his wife’s bones aren’t in the gravesite where he buried her 7 years prior. One scene has two characters digging up her bones in a gravesite.
When we produced this play, we did so in a local church. The church building itself, held the bulk of the action of the play. However, two characters needed to move to the graveyard outside to continue the scene and forward the story.
This meant that the audience had to leave the pews and follow the actors outside. The seating was a purpose-built covered area. The audience watched the actors dig up bones from the ground. (Extra dirt had been layered over top of the ground to look like a gravesite) and forward the story.
This gave an unexpected, humor to the play.
The audience loved having to move from scene to scene as it gave them a visceral, tangible feel which they tended to remember, rather than merely watching the play from seats in an auditorium.
Improvised Peformances
Some theatrical companies have invested sums of money to mount improvised interactive move-about theater such as ‘Spookers’ in Auckland, New Zealand. This is a Theme Park style of performance.
It is based in an old insane asylum littered with spooky ghosts, monsters, ghouls, zombies, crazy and other unsavoury characters throughout parts of the building. This promenade theatre is more improvised without a set script.
The audience assembles at the beginning or entrance in groups, where they move along in their groups through the various theatrical rooms decked out in horror movie type dressings. With scares, moans and threats abound.
The actors have roles to play, but is unscripted and more improvised. The audience move along each room to experience fright of some kind.
Spookers is believed to be New Zealands only haunted attraction scream park. This is said to be very haunted in real life.
Infact the organisers have said that they have spare pants and underpants for those peopole who wet themselves due to the fear they face. Yes it’s a true story.
What are the Advantages Of This type of Theater?
The major advantage of using this type of theatre is that the audience isn’t a passive onlooker, because they are active participants. If for instance, Alice used interactive dialogue with the other characters and encouraging audience participation, the audience, feels part of the show. This makes it very attractive and fun for the audience and the producers are likely to have a memorable and successful show.
The advantage is that the sites are often specific to a set genre. For example, my company The Real Theater Company has played a number of walkabout shows in public and private gardens. The Centennial Park in Napier will hold the 20201 Alice In Wonderland show for our Art Deco Weekend. (This is a co-production where RTC and the Art Deco Trust are mounting Alice In Wonderland).
Another advantage is that a school, College, or Drama group could conceivably use this type of theater for conventional plays, which can be adapted to this type of theater relatively easily. From Christmas shows written from scratch to children’s classics and fringe festival shows. It’s very doable and would be popular with most audiences.
Interesting Tid Bit About the Word Prom
The College and High School Proms started in the United States and has taken off in many other Western countries. The practice was originally for young College-age women who paraded themselves in the hopes of landing a husband. Unfortunately, this type of celebration is marred by racist practices where Black young people were excluded from the balls due to the color of their skin. Glad things have changed.
Conclusion
Promenade Theater is an alternative genre of performance where the audience walks from scene to scene, sometimes interacting and other times observing. It is a style of theater that can be fascinating, unconventional, and inspiring. The theater-type can accommodate many types of performances geared for children to adults alike.
