Most of my work, for most of my life, has been theatrical in nature - but theatrical work is increasingly impossible to make. These days, I am struggling to call myself a theatre maker.
So I’ve decided that I have a new job title: I am a theoretical theatre maker. (Or maybe I make theoretical theatre. Or maybe both.)
Like so many of us, I have a ton of projects that haven’t been made over the years. All this time, I’ve been seeing them as failures of theatre making. Now that I come to think about it, that cannot be true.
Each one took time and energy to shape. Each one went through a creative process and contains creative ideas. Not just ideas: developed storytelling, developed experiential arcs, developed engagement approaches.
Many never left the page, but some managed to get on their feet in some form or other. Some have even had small productions, but just not reached what I think of as the final stage.
And there are projects I am trying to make, future projects I would love to make, but I cannot put myself through the pain of rejection again and again, from funders and developers and producers. I can’t do it. I love all of my work, and I love my creative self, and the situation in which we find ourselves - in the arts and also in support for disabled artists - is too damaging to me and to the work. It’s untenable.
Recently, it occured to me that I am actually the one who has been most unfair to my work. I’ve been giving it all these job titles to live up to: writer, director, producer. By accepted industry standards, those roles all put insanely assumptive demands on the work.
So I’m now giving all of my work the absolute legitimacy it deserves, by changing my job title to theoretical theatre maker. There are theoretical physicists, and theoretical mathematicians, and I don’t see why theatre can’t have theory as a legit professional role.
Moving forwards, I’m going to use my substack to present each project: the old ones and the new ones, the unfundable ones, the insanely big ones that nobody would ever be able to actually produce. All of them.
I invite you to join me in engaging with my work as my theoretical collaborator. The pay is theoretically amazing, and the work is available to you as much as you want, whenever you want, in theory.
Maybe you came and saw my work in theory and you want to theoretically comment on it.
Maybe you interacted with it in theory and you want to talk about your theoretical experience.
Maybe you collaborated creatively on making it in theory and you want to share something about the theoretical role you played.
Maybe you want to publish some theoretical reflective response to a project you attended in theory.
You are welcome to do this in the manner of an academic study. You’re welcome to daydream yourself into my work. Feel free to wildly imagine what happened, and then share your imaginings.
If you mark everything as theoretical, there will be clarity that this is work the industry was unable to support in anything more than theory, and I think that might be useful in many ways.
If you share your own theoretical theatre making, do let me know. I can’t promise to share any of my own response to it, but I can absolutely promise you that, in theory, I will completely love it.
Upcoming Reality Work
You can read an interview with me talking about the kind of theatre I make in reality, with the wonderful Katy @ voidspace. https://voidspacezine.com/voidspace-in-conversation-jenifer-toksvig/
If you want me to gather your fairytale moment, The Fairytale Library will be (really) at Voidspace Live 2025 on 7-8 June 2025. This is a brilliantly exciting interactive arts festival. More info here - https://voidspacezine.com/event/voidspace-live-2025/
I love this, but autocorrect made me write ‘I live this’ which is also true.