HotHouse Theatre is a regional creative powerhouse and first class incubator of new Australian work.
Located on the VIC-NSW border in Albury Wodonga, HotHouse has been the home of professional theatre for over 25 years, with a rich and celebrated history of commissioning, nurturing, producing and presenting contemporary Australian theatre that ignites the imagination of the region and the nation.
HotHouse brings regional stories to national stages.
THIS IS YOUR CITY was created as a gift to Albury Wodonga, as part of HotHouse’s 25th Anniversary Season in 2022. It was re-installed in 2024 as a contribution to the cultural tourism of our region. It can be played independently, all year round.
This Is Your City – The Live Game is a celebration of our community, our artists and our stories.
THE INSPIRATION
THIS IS YOUR CITY – ALBURY WODONGA
THIS IS YOUR CITY is an interactive, theatrical adaptation of the 1986 classic Albury Wodonga board game, where you, your family and friends are drawn into the game play, driving your car around to play live through our twin cities, in an afternoon of pure fun!
This work was conceived and created during the long Victorian Covid-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, when the livelihoods of our artists, and the future of live theatre for audiences was extremely precarious. Across that time we experienced periods of border closure both from the NSW and VIC sides, requiring locals living within the border bubble to apply fortnightly for permits to cross between Albury and Wodonga. Some fortnights we could cross the border, some we couldn’t. We lived week to week with completely different rules for residents living on different sides of the bridge.
It was during this time that HotHouse Artistic Director, Karla Conway discovered the old board game. Most intriguing was the game board itself – a street map of the region from North Albury to High Street in Wodonga – moreover, it was a snapshot of what Albury Wodonga looked like during the mid 1980s. Some buildings and shops still stood, while others had become obsolete with the advent of time. It told a story of the cities at a very specific time. With the once-in-a-generation pandemic in full force, it seemed opportune to capture a snapshot of the stories of the region at this specific time.
With no access to our beloved Butter Factory Theatre, we had to think deeply about how we might do theatre differently, bringing our shows out of the building and into the community in a covid safe way. The idea of traveling in CovidSafe pods led to the idea of the car rally, the car rally led to the adventure and the adventure led to the birth of this brand new production!
This is Your City – The Live Game opened our 2022 season – Our Stories, Our Way, which had a live 20 minute show in the theatre, followed by the game play out across the cities. From the outset we wanted to see this work live on beyond its original season. The performances are embedded and the game can now be played all year round. 76 artists from this region contributed to make this a reality.
