Inside Out
The InsideOut project was created in 2007 with the aim to be a leading advocate of gay rights in Queensland and Australia. InsideOut wishes to enlighten the ignorant, educate the confused, comfort the ostracized and celebrate sexual diversity. The tool of choice in achieving this is the performing arts, to create theatrical works that incite a dialogue between audience and artists to evolve into community debates that will further gay rights on a community, social and political level.
In all theatrical works and projects, InsideOut seek to present the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Queenslanders in as a realistic manner as possible. The key to achieving this is to value research periods highly and use many verbatim quotes in the performance outcomes of the organisation. Based on critical pedagogy research and the work of Augusto Boal and hundreds of political theatre groups like him, the ideology of InsideOut is that when an audience sees a version of themselves, or their story played out onstage, the context of the ‘performance' provides enough emotional distance for them to view and question their own behaviour; either on a personal or communal level. This viewed performance leads to dialogues and workshops facilitated by InsideOut, improving the awareness of gay rights.
Domestic Bliss
After an intense research and scripting process InsideOut presented its first work: Domestic Bliss. This play was written by David Burton, a USQ Creative Communities team member and is based upon the Australian family unit, and concerns itself mostly with the coming out of young people into families that may struggle with the idea. This premise was simply born out of the organic nature of the research, a vital key to good verbatim theatre practice. Coming out and ‘learning how to be gay' is a process that every LGBT person meets.
The play itself focuses on a family of a son and a daughter with a father and mother. Living in an anonymous semi-regional town, the family unit struggles with the idea of their only daughter, Tracy, being gay. Nathan, the slightly younger son, is also puzzled by his sexuality, and both chil-dren explore their feelings through a variety of different stories and scenes with their respective partners. Parallel to the main narrative, there are many separate stories that are explored, all of them coming directly from research. The actors talk directly to the audience. The play has moments of great laughter and poignance and is designed to be flexible in its performance.
Outcomes
The InsideOut project partnered with the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities (QAHC) and Domestic Bliss was performed twice at USQ attracting a mixed demographic and inciting interesting and honest feedback. It then became part of the Brisbane Pride Festival 2007. The publicity and reputation gained from InsideOut's first performance can be directly attributed to the dedicated group of individuals who worked with very little funds to create such a unique performance.