Two-way theatre connects city and regional schools

Someone had to go first. After eight months of knowing each other remotely, it was time for a face-to-face. The kids from Western Sydney would get their turn, but first 40 students from Griffith in the south-west of NSW felt every eye burning through them as they found their way through Fairfield High School to meet the peers they had got to know on Skype and Facebook and by letters, postcards, photos, phone calls and video conferences. Then, large as life right in front of them were Samira and Alex, just like they were on screen, there to greet and lead them to a class full of faces and names ready to give them a huge hug of a welcome with a chorus of cheers and a racket of claps. For the first time in real time Outback Theatre for Young People’s Secret Places: The Connections Project had a very direct human dimension. Which was exactly the point.