Dream House is an Arts Council England funded theatre R&D exploring housing, belonging and domestic space through community research and embodied performance. Part dark comedy, part social horror, the project follows two sisters renovating their childhood home as rising floodwaters and buried tensions begin to surface. Developed through interviews, movement research and mentorship with and, the project investigates how housing shapes identity, behaviour and the body itself.
The R&D combines:
- qualitative interviews across the local housing spectrum
- embodied improvisation and movement research
- mentorship in physical comedy and dramaturgy
- iterative studio testing
- ethical reflection and documentation
Working with mentors, the project explores how testimony and observation can be translated into movement, rhythm, gesture and theatrical language. Dramaturg supports narrative development and structural shaping.
Alongside early-stage material for the eventual production, the R&D will generate a public-facing Methods Log: a toolkit of embodied writing exercises and ethical research approaches designed to support artists working with community testimony and socially engaged performance.
At its heart, Dream House asks whether theatre can hold complex social realities without collapsing into simplification. Whether humour can coexist with grief, class anxiety and political tension. Whether the domestic space itself can become theatrical terrain: haunted, absurd, tender and unstable all at once.
Alfrun Rose 