… it’s a moment that won’t be bettered this Fringe.
David Zampatti, The West Australian, 2016
Pedro used to run and skateboard and play soccer and go to school … Not anymore. Pedro stays inside now.
His best friend, Flora, thinks that’s boring and kind of freaky. But Pedro doesn’t care. He’s building a pillow fort (he would prefer you called it ‘The Death Star’) and it’s getting bigger and bigger every day. Every day it’s getting harder and harder for Flora to reach him.
Pedro has the best Reasons to Stay Inside, but Flora knows what he’s missing and she will do whatever it takes to get her best friend to come outside.
You can’t stay inside your fort forever, can you?
A show about that irritating best friends, dancing pegacorns, pillow forts and that weird anxious feeling.
For 8 to 108 year olds!
Awards
2015 Melbourne Fringe Award Best Kids Show (Winner) | 2015 Victorian Green Room Award Best Director, Independent Theatre – Prue Clark (Nominated) | 2016 Perth Fringe Arts Editor Award (Nominated) | 2016 Australian Writer’s Guild Award (AWGIE) for Best Children’s Theatre – Katy Warner (Winner)
Performance History
First performed at the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival and 2016 Perth Fringe World for The Blue Room Theatre, Summer Nights Program with the following cast and creatives:
Written by Katy Warner | Directed by Prue Clark | Starring Emma Annand and Oliver Coleman | Set and Costume Design by Yvette Turnbull | Sound Design by Lachlan Millsom | Lighting Design by Amelia Lever-Davidson | Stage Management by Luke Preer | Photography Hayden Bevis
(Production Images by James Breen, The Blue Room Theatre season 2016)
Reasons to Stay Inside was performed as part of the Roola Boola Children’s Festival (City of Stonnington)
Reviews
Warner has personal experience of this kind of crippling anxiety, and this story is her way of throwing light on it. It’s to her very great credit that she never gets “grown-up” about it; “The Thing” never becomes agoraphobia or the other clinical conditions that Pedro may be suffering. The story remains a kids’ one, and salvation remains in their hands.
Emma Annand is simply terrific as Flora. She’s toothy, radiant and irrepressible, an Energizer Bunny, a little engine that can. Oliver Coleman handles his difficult task with lovely skill, frustrating when we see him through Flora’s eyes, but courageous when we see things, and The Thing, through his.
And when we hold up the little lights Annand gives us to show Pedro that it’s not really dark and scary outside, it’s a moment that won’t be bettered this Fringe.
– David Zampatti, The West Australian, 2016
You don’t even need to have or borrow a kid to have a reason to see this creative, colourful, silly and thoughtful show, though if you do, you’ll be scoring some serious points with them. The kids in the audience loved every second of it, and, well, so did I.
written by warner 