Previous projects

FamilySmart, the Institute of Families for Child & Youth Mental Health, the National Infant, Child & Youth Mental Health Consortium and the University of British Columbia invited TheatreWorks to create a play with a small group of conference organizers and participants as a means to test the new FamilySmart Family Engagement Tool. After performing the short play, which focused on a family’s interaction with the mental health system, audience members were invited to take an actor’s place and try their idea to improve engagement for the family. After the intervention, TheatreWorks initiated a discussion about what level of engagement within the tool was reflected in the audience member’s approach. As one conference attendee noted, it was an “Excellent presentation and fantastic exercise. It was a very engaging, thought-provoking, fun, and unique way to collaborate.” 

At the University of the Fraser Valley’s Race and Antiracism Network’s Conference, we used Cops in the Head to engage audience members in a creative dialogue as the keynote address. 

Cops in the Head addresses those internal voices that have embedded themselves in our psyche. It is not always external forces that we struggle against - sometimes internalized voices that originate from other people are equally powerful. Cops in the Head are the voices of people who put up stop-signs and say, "you can’t do that", "you're stupid", "no good" etc. People who have somehow blocked us and over time have taken up residence inside us, affecting the way each of us listens, sees and acts. This workshop helps participants and living communities identify these voices and liberate themselves in a creative and entertaining way.

At the University of Victoria’s Social Justice Studies conference keynote, we used Rainbow of Desire to engage audience members in a creative dialogue exploring how housed people might break down barriers and assumptions about homelessness in order to understand how we might address this pressing issues. 

Rainbow of Desire explores our internal voices that complicate our relationships with other people and stop us from achieving our goals. By learning to identify these internal voices, we begin the process of understanding ourselves and each other. In this exercise, we move from individual stories to a collective understanding, and learn how to navigate multi-layered moments in complex relationships and issues.