Back to Back Theatre Premieres MULTIPLE BAD THINGS in April

MULTIPLE BAD THINGS, the new work by Back to Back Theatre will premiere in the company’s home town at Geelong Arts Centre 11 - 13 April, internationally at Brussels Theater Nationale in May, and in Melbourne at Malthouse Theatre from 29 May to 9 June 2024. It will be the first performances by the company since being announced as recipients of this year’s Venice Biennale Gold Lion Award for Theatre.

Directed by Back to Back Artistic Associates Tamara Searle and Ingrid Voorendt, who co-authored the work with ensemble members and guest artists, MULTIPLE BAD THINGS stars Natasha Jynel, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, and Scott Price.   In an exciting departure, it is the first major work for the company by new directors in seventeen years.

Struggling to work together, three employees grapple with questions of inclusion, identity and intersectionality. Civility slips, bad behaviour escalates, and reality distorts. The witching hour is here. Who will be the scapegoat? 

Welcome to the workplace at the end of the world. They’re only saying what you’ve already been thinking.

Co directors Tamara Searle and Ingrid Voorendt said: “Remember how the world ended and we had to keep on working. The workplace is where many of our values and ideas about identity, ability, and boundaries are challenged. MULTIPLE BAD THINGS reflects the uncertainty and change happening in the world during the time in which it was made. How do we live and work together in a time of crisis and division, in the face of multiple bad things? How do we keep our senses of humour and hope intact?

We are making a show that interrogates our habits of oppression and our beliefs about systemic injustice and inequality. Throughout our process we have been thinking about how to embrace plurality in devising and leadership, and in the representation of voices and of identities. This plays out in the show itself. We are really looking forward to sharing MULTIPLE BAD THINGS with audiences at our premiere seasons in 2024.”

Ensemble member Sarah Mainwaring said: “MULTIPLE BAD THINGS is about manipulation, and  about the taking of power. I think that it is going to be a most powerful work.”
 
Ensemble member Scott Price said: “People should come and see this, because it supports our local community. It supports our disabled community. It supports our autistic community like myself. And to see us. It’s gonna be great!”
 
In the making of this new work, Back to Back Theatre has invited new voices into the devising room. Zoë Barry’s score is assembled from collected field recordings of bad things. Anna Cordingley’s design demands the actors’ physical participation to reach its manifestation. 
 
MULTIPLE BAD THINGS is theatre. It is not real. But in a world where self-righteously indignant voices so often drown out the most disenfranchised and vulnerable, this theatre sometimes feels real. 
 

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