Something has been broken in the world of PROMPTER by instantaneous news reporting. Journalists and their audience are caught in a game of ‘guess-what-is-happening-while-it-streams-right-into-your-home’. And as this real-time event unfolds the gaze of the audience feeds a storm of converging narratives.

PROMPTER takes place in a surreal newsroom studio and explores how the boundaries of news practice is slipping away via new technology and driven by the rapacious appetites of media consumers.

Onstage, a live media drama plays out – while an ‘online chorus’ of performers observe, stage vigils and re-create action in their homes.

The chorus are part of an epidemic of performative empathy that is spreading through living spaces across the globe. And the journalists caught at the centre of this storm, who have become the darlings of disaster and violence, must find a way forward or out of this loop of information, concern and intervention.

Written by journalist and writer Patrick Pittman (Monocle, Smith Journal and Dumbo Feather) and Perth’s Hydra Poesis director Sam Fox (Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship recipient), PROMPTER features five onstage performers and an online chorus of voices streaming into the performance from around the globe – including Australia, Argentina, America, France and the United Kingdom

PROMPTER incorporates broadcast, theatre, dance and performance art; and interrogates the ethics and conflicts of today’s media environment, journalism practice and digital culture.

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Season Fri 9 – Sun 18 August 2013

Green Saturday Matinee Sat 17 August 2013, 2pm

Post-show Q&A Thu 15 August 2013

Time Wed – Sat 7.30pm / Sun 5pm

Duration 90 minutes no interval

Tickets Full $30 / Conc $25 / Student $20

Venue Arts House, Meat Market, 5 Blackwood Street, North Melbourne

Bookings artshouse.com.au or 03 9322 3713