Bites by Kay Adshead: A Tasting Workshop at Theaterlab

Bites by Kay Adshead is a theatrical banquet — a poetic feast of cruelty, resilience, and survival. This October workshop will explore two of its seven “courses” through improvisation, physical action, and ensemble work. The aim is not to present a finished performance, but to invite audiences into a shared theatrical ritual where fragility and imagination become tools of resistance.

This October process aims to explore how the poetic writing — more lyrical and elusive than narrative — can open up to multiple interpretations. In this phase, all geographic references will be removed, shifting the focus away from a specific place or time toward a more universal condition. Situations change, contexts shift, yet dynamics of power, violence, and the denial of human rights repeat themselves: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change” (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard).

The goal is not to present a finished performance but to undertake a shared process in which actors, through structured improvisations, physical action studies, and ensemble work, can discover their own voice and creativity and place it in service of something higher and more universal. For this to happen, I believe it is necessary to set aside our small self, to make space for fragility and vulnerability — conditio sine qua non, in my view — to become vessels of an art that offers political thought, in the etymological sense of the word: a reflection on the polis, on community. In this way, the group creates a theatrical ritual where imagination becomes a tool of resistance.