A Place for Making Magic: HKU Blackbox Theatre

HKU Blackbox Theatre

When Aarti Hemnani, the manager of the new HKU Blackbox Theatre (HKUBB), was an Arts student at HKU in the early 2000s, she was desperate to do theatre. But apart from a drama programme with Dr Page Richards, which held robust springtime performances around the Main Building fountain, often in the late-day heat, there were few opportunities. She had to look off-campus for her theatre fix.

That memory made a lasting impression on Ms Hemnani, who jumped at the chance to take on the HKUBB after years working in non-profit art education in Singapore and commercial theatre in Hong Kong.

“During the interview process, I was asked why I wanted to leave what I was doing and come and do this. Immediately I said when I was a student, I would have been over the moon to have a theatre at HKU,” she said.

Befittingly, Dr Richards, who oversees drama and creative writing at HKU, is the driving force behind the theatre, which opened earlier this year. She made a bid for the space when the new Centennial Campus was in early development, determined to have a theatre that could support not only performances but also writing and experimentation.

“I know how important space is to the kind of studio practices that go along with research practices in drama and creative writing. The more you feel connection to a space, the more it inspires generatively new ideas and work in writers,” she said.

The theatre’s design also promotes focus and contemplation, collaborative work across disciplines at the university, and engagement with the wider Hong Kong community. It features black walls and windows, which offer a protected space for fresh ideas and invention. It has a flexible stage, the flexible seating of an intimate space, as well as a giant screen and projector.

For Ms Hemnani, one of the key advantages of the HKUBB is that it is unlike commercial theatre where “you go in, make magic for a week and leave.” Here, the focus is on experimenting and developing works over longer periods of time. Creative writers see their work move from the page to the stage, while theatre specialists play with how to convey stories.

The first full-scale production in the theatre was a play written by MFA graduate Wilson Chik. There have also been workshops, symposia, film screenings, community outreach and other such events, although Ms Hemnani said they were careful to leave time for creation. “We need to have space within to allow for interesting things to come up,” she said. Some recent examples: an upcoming collaboration in 2016 with the “Island Cities and Urban Archipelagos” conference and with the HKU Landscape Architecture programme to explore scale and space; and plans for a new puppet opera.

Dr Richards said these explorations gave breadth to the theatre, but as a university they were also concerned about depth. Quality matters too, and she and Ms Hemnani are seeking to curate something that is both a community resource and a source of creativity. “We want to convey the idea that anything is possible, but along with experimentation, we need to keep the bar raised high,” she said.

Added Ms Hemnani: “It’s time for the Hong Kong story to be developed and for local writers to have a platform. Isn’t it wonderful to have a home for them!”

See the original article in Arts Faculty Newsletter Winter 2015.