A Performance Methodology for a Probabilistic World

For over 2,500 years, theatre has been shaped by Aristotelian Poetics and Newtonian physics, reflecting a deterministic worldview. Theatre narratives have been structured around fixed causality, where events follow a linear progression of cause and effect, much like Newtonian mechanics.

However, our understanding of reality has dramatically shifted in the past century. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have revealed a world that is fluid, probabilistic, and shaped by observation. Yet, our artistic and theatrical tools have not caught up.

ProbabilisticStages is a performance methodology that aligns theatre with reality's uncertainty, adaptability, and emergent nature. It offers two distinct but interconnected approaches to performance:

TransPerformance – A harvesting process for creating new work (devised theatre) using probabilistic composition and performance tools.
Pragmatics – A method for staging pre-existing plays (scripted theatre) probabilistically, presenting a performance that speaks to the current understanding of the reality of today’s audience.

Both methodologies apply probabilistic thinking to theatre, shifting away from fixed structures and rehearsed determinism toward emergent, responsive, and real-time performance-making.

Key Principles of Probabilistic Stages

ProbabilisticStages is a performance methodology that transforms theatre from a deterministic, fixed structure into a probabilistic, adaptive, and emergent process. It applies to both devised theatre (TransPerformance) and scripted theatre (Pragmatics), embracing uncertainty, multiplicity, and responsiveness as fundamental aspects of performance.

1️⃣ Performance as a Probabilistic System

Traditional theatre follows fixed scripts, blocking, and character arcs, reflecting an Aristotelian/Newtonian cause-and-effect understanding of reality. ProbabilisticStages treats theatre as a living system, where elements exist in superposition until realized in the moment of enactment.

🔹 Theatre is no longer about repetition and determinism—it becomes an adaptive, ever-evolving process.

2️⃣ Uncertainty as a Creative Force

Despite our best efforts to plan, life unfolds unpredictably—theatre should reflect this.

Instead of avoiding uncertainty, ProbabilisticStages embraces it as a generative force. Meaning is not imposed but emerges dynamically from the interplay of actors, audience, movement, sound, space, and time.

🔹 Performance is about navigating the unknown, not controlling the outcome.

3️⃣ The Actor as Observer & Creator

Just as quantum mechanics demonstrates that observation collapses probabilities into reality, actors in ProbabilisticStages are both observers and creators, shaping performance in real time.

🔹 Actors train to respond, adapt, and shift based on real-time variables rather than fixed rehearsed choices.

4️⃣ TransPerformance: Creating Theatre from the Inner World

TransPerformance is a method for creating devised theatre that does not start from a script but emerges from subconscious exploration, using:

✅ Inner World Harvesting – Techniques like Active Imagination, Asemic Writing, Automatic Writing, Three Images Workshop, and Image Theatre.
✅ Panoramic Field – A dynamic, adaptable field where creative material is stored and meaning arises spatially rather than linearly.
✅ Emergent Narrative – Scenes unfold probabilistically through movement, emotional shifts, actor choices, and audience engagement.

🔹 Each performance is a unique expression of the same living field/system—no two are ever identical.

5️⃣ Pragmatics: Staging Text Probabilistically

Most written plays are deterministic, following fixed cause-effect sequences. Pragmatics transforms these plays into probabilistic performances by:

✅ The Short Play Method – A 20-minute version of the play is staged early to give actors an immediate experiential understanding of the script’s field of possibilities.
✅ Exploration – Actors break initial habits to discover multiple interpretations.
✅ Mechanics – The text is experienced through its essential "whats", not emotional beats.
✅ Fragmentation – Replaces Beats/Units, allowing text to remain part of a larger system rather than independent emotional moments.
✅ Patterning – Replaces blocking, letting actors develop movement organically through performance patterns rather than fixed positions.
✅ Staging as Superposition – Actors never settle on one action for each fragment but explore a range of possible actions, letting meaning collapse in the moment of performance based on relationships with other actors, space, text, and audience.

🔹 Even deterministic scripted plays can be performed probabilistically, mirroring how meaning in life is constantly shifting in real time.

6️⃣ Meaning is Not Fixed, It’s Emergent

In traditional theatre, meaning is pre-determined—a script is analyzed, a directorial vision is imposed, and actors interpret roles within a rigid framework.

In ProbabilisticStages, meaning never exists beforehand—it unfolds through experience, presence, and interaction.

🔹 No two performances are the same because no two moments in life are the same.

7️⃣ The Audience as a Co-Creator

Traditional theatre assumes the audience is passive, merely observing a world that unfolds without their influence. ProbabilisticStages treats the audience as an active participant—their energy, reactions, and presence influence the event in real-time. There is no more fourth wall.

🔹 There is no fourth wall—the performers are trained to register and respond to audience energy, making the performance an exchange.

8️⃣ Theatrical Space as a Fluid Dimension

In deterministic theatre, space is static—sets are fixed, blocking is mapped in advance, and movement follows a pre-planned sequence.

In ProbabilisticStages, space is an active relational element, shifting in response to actors, audience, and emergent meaning.

🔹 Theatrical space is treated as a multidimensional field, not a static frame.

9️⃣ Training for Uncertainty: The Probabilistic Performer

Actors in deterministic theatre train for precision and repetition. In ProbabilisticStages, actors train for flexibility, responsiveness, and real-time decision-making.

Training Methods Include:

✅ Navigating Emergent Spaces – Actors move dynamically, never repeating exact actions. Blocking is removed from the actor’s vocabulary because it implies finality—nothing is final in ProbabilisticStages, or in life.
✅ Adaptive Vocal & Physical Work – Meaning shifts in real time based on the actors’ relationships with each other, the space, the text, and the audience.
✅ Superposition Training – Actors rehearse multiple possible choices, remaining open to different outcomes in performance.

🔹 Precision is unnecessary—performance, like life, is messy.

🔹 Summary: The Paradigm Shift of ProbabilisticStages

🔹 Traditional Theatre (Deterministic):

• Fixed scripts

• Pre-determined blocking

• Rehearsed and repeated choices

• The audience as a passive observer

🔹 ProbabilisticStages (Adaptive):
✅ Emergent storytelling
✅ Responsive movement & spatial patterns
✅ Real-time discovery of meaning
✅ The audience as a co-creator

In a probabilistic world, theatre must be probabilistic