The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room is rich with physical, metaphysical and psychological resonances. Waiting is universal, it's something we have all experienced either by choice or circumstance. Waiting. Waiting in a cue, traffic jam, for a change, a break, a diagnosis, better times, paint to dry, for love, for a verdict or even for death.
Enter The Waiting Room and you immediately ask: where’s the stage? The entire space is filled with rows of chairs. Sit where you will; from the outset, the audience is complicit in the show’s creation.
The Waiting Room is a space for possibilities, for unforeseen interactions and events. These interactions are the engine of The Waiting Room and the audience as both spectators and participants bring their individual histories and imaginations to bear. In the waiting interactions occur, events take place, and meaning accrues.The line between audience and performers fade as genuine in-the-moment exchanges shape each moment that follows.
The Waiting Room places collective human behaviour under the microscope from the banal to the absurd as increasingly ridiculous scenarios unfold. Free to sit and watch or join in, while Melbourne's masters of improvisation seduce the audience in collective play and scrutiny. The stakes keep getting higher, till finally one person's wait is over, in an unexpected twist: a grand solo is performed by an audience member. Empowering and unpredictable, each night’s show has its own unique, unrepeatable moments. Non-verbal and accessible it is a performance for everyone across culture and age. A site specific work responsive to each venue.

“What makes this piece radically beautiful is that it interrogates and embodies the random processes intrinsic to human behaviour. Informed by physical theatre, social psychology and neuroscience, The Waiting Room is a living incarnation of fractal art….cutting-edge experimental theatre: a profound exploration of how we choreograph ourselves from chaos” - Cameron Woodhead, The Age
“Sheer, playful joy” - Tim Richards, Issimo Magazine
“A COMPLETE night at the theatre; surprising, eloquent, strange, funny, exhilarating, ridiculous, intimate, awkward, original” - Sue Giles, Polyglot Theatre

Audience Warnings
Be careful you might enjoy yourself! If you have any mobility restrictions please let Box Office know when you pick up your ticket.

Age restrictions
6+ years

Presenter Line
Gasworks Arts Park and Born in a Taxi present The Waiting Room