Step into Australia's convict history with 'A Convict's Hope' by Folly Games.
An interactive performance welcoming the whole family, 'A Convict's Hope' takes place inside the Museum Of Brisbane where an exhibition holds all the secrets that the show holds within itself.
Here, Creative Producer and Folly Games Founder Tim Monley answers some questions around what to expect in this show.
What is 'A Convict's Hope' all about?
It’s a theatre show with a live puzzle quest. Intergalactic, time-travelling archivists search for an important artifact that speaks to the hope experienced by convicts in Australia’s – specifically Brisbane’s – history. By bringing these local historical characters to life from Museum of Brisbane’s A Life in Irons exhibition, audience members can help them in the their quests, learn about the past and enjoy a playful experience together in a museum setting.
'A Convict's Hope' is interactive! How do you get audience members involved in the show?
The characters and the audience are on an adventure together. They both need to solve problems and puzzles to see the story through. Each character they encounter has puzzles that need solving and a story that needs resolving. The museum exhibition holds answers to puzzles, which lead them to objects in the archive, revealing the secrets the object holds.
What kind of trial and error does putting together an interactive production like this take?
We’ve been doing game theatre for about eight years now, but each show has new challenges. We run through in our imaginations as many times as possible, but of course, that has its limits. We are also introducing interactive digital technology in this show, run by a game engine we’ve been designing. The tech element adds new layers of interest as well as complexity to the operation. We had a test audience come in early to play through all the game elements and they provided a lot of valuable feedback. Since opening we have continued to tweak puzzles and edit hints to get the difficulty level right. We try and make the operation look very simple, and controlled by the fantastic actors in the show. If we manage that, the participants have the best experience, and we’ve achieved our goal.
Image © Lachlan Douglas
As the Creative Producer for this particular show, what has your role entailed?
Most of my creative work is in the early stages of the project, working out the central idea and structure of the show. Forming partnerships with Museum of Brisbane, Anywhere Theatre Festival and Woodfordia Inc and then getting support from Arts Queensland was what enabled this project to go ahead. From there I built a team, Maddie Nixon who is an incredibly talented theatre director and Gianni Tills who has been creating the puzzles for the show, along with a wonderful cast and team of creatives to work on props on costumes and the technology. From there it becomes about marketing and plugging whatever holes turn up in the production to keep it going. Whether that is buying audio cables or last minute printing.
Were there any particular stand-out/memorable moments when you were putting it together with Folly Games?
The moment I love is when we first put everything in the space. The actors first breathe life into the story for an audience and the environment comes alive with playfulness. I remember in our first show seeing my nine-year-old niece edging herself closer to the performers, enthralled by them. Listening to discussions around the puzzles they were solving and studying the historical documents for clues was really exciting to see.
This is playing for quite some time – until October – so do you plan on making any changes between now and then to the show?
Yes. There are two changes in the exhibition during the show, so we are updating puzzles to match the new content in the exhibition. We are also updating the technology as we go, adding more comments and more interaction from our talking podiums. As we update the show they’ll say more and interact with people more.
'A Convict's Hope' essentially brings the 19th and 21st centuries together. Where did the idea for this show come from?
The show really grew out of the Life In Irons exhibition. We bring characters to life from that exhibition. The archivist characters are more from the Folly Games world and provide a way for us to bring silliness and fun to what can be a dark subject. I’ve been keen to incorporate interactive technology that is in world and doesn’t involved screens as part of a show for some time. At the moment we are building a game engine to make this kind of experience easier to create. Brisbane City Council has actually just funded this idea with their Innovation Grants programmes. This show is a great project for demonstrating our early version of this software.
What do you hope the reaction to this production is?
I hope people walk away from this experience having had a great time and feeling like they’ve had an experience that connects them with the past and with Brisbane. I hope it opens up the possibility of more theatre in museums and introduces people to other kinds of experiential entertainment. I hope it inspires learning and encourages schools to have their students experience playful and engaging game theatre as a way of further engaging them with learning. Ultimately I want people inspired to be more playful and into life and learning. For one hour they will get an experience of that and hopefully that experience can continue beyond the performance.
Can you describe the show in three words?
Playful, engaging, enriching.
