Richmond’s Gateway Theatre is celebrating the spooky season with Halloween-themed miniature theatre kits for families to enjoy safely in their own homes this year.
Jasmine Chen, artistic and community producer at Gateway Theatre, has partnered with Keely O’Brien, a Richmond-based interdisciplinary artist, to create the theatre play Hallows’ Eve.
Each 3-D kit is a “ready to assemble” theatre with paper characters and set pieces printed on cardstock, a script for the play and assembly instructions, in English and Chinese.
Chen, who wrote the play, hopes to inspire creativity and storytelling while kids and their families enjoy the illustrations provided by O’Brien.
“While we’re waiting to return to our bellowed theatre venues and artistic spaces, I wanted to capture the feeling of escaping into another world, which is my favourite part of experiencing theatre,” said Chen.
“Although digital performances are exciting, we wanted to turn the focus back on the infinite possibilities of one’s own creativity.”
O’Brien hopes everyone will enjoy “assembling and playing with the theatre” as much as she did making it and looks forward to seeing people’s “imagination and creativity shine.”
People are encouraged to share their at-home theatre experience by posting photos and videos on social media with the hashtag #MyGTPaperTheatreKit.
Kits can be ordered at GatewayTheatre.com/upcoming-events/paper-theatre
