Game Design for Theatre Makers Workshop (2026)

Designed & Facilitated by Laurel Green & Derek Manderson

With design contributions from Milton Lim

A game design praxis workshop for performance practitioners.

What do games do? How do they make meaning? What do they reveal about the larger systems we inhabit?

This hands-on workshop invites theatre makers to explore these questions through the activity of modding, developing, and playtesting new games. Drawing on core concepts from game studies — including critical play, the magic circle, and procedural rhetoric — participants use a custom-made design deck to rapidly prototype and playtest original games, discovering how rules generate story, how systems generate meaning, and how play generates community.

Gameful dramaturgy is experimental dramaturgy: mess around with playful redesigns and see what happens. It is systems dramaturgy: there is an urgent need to stage playful systems in action. And it is community dramaturgy: we play, collaborate, and make meaning together.

No prior game design experience is necessary. All forms of participation are welcome.