The three laws of the Theatre machine

Workshop "White rabbit" Iceland Academy of the Arts (IAA)

1. The rules of the creative space in any given theatre machine may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 

2. A human must obey the rules of the creative space, except where such rules would conflict with the First Law.

3. A human can change the rules the creative space and its theatre devices as long as such a change does not conflict with the First or Second Laws


The three laws are there to ensure that the humans do not come to harm. It is the responsibility of the humans to keep and enforce the laws. 
The rules of the creative space in any given machine are both written and unwritten. To be precise they are both explicit and implicit, a written rule/explicit rule can potentially contain a promise of an unwritten rule /implicit rule.  It is therefore imperative that the humans in the machine take responsibility for each other’s safety.  The third law allows humans to change the rules of the creative space for that purpose.

Titles and rules

Workshop/seminar Icelandic Academy of the Arts (IAA)

A theatre machine should have a title and each exploration or execution in the creative space should have a title. 
The title is a tool to embody the challenge or question that is to be explored or executed. 

Every title has within it a promise of a set of explicit and implicit “truths” or knowns. These can then help to “charge” or “load” the creative space and its devices and imply a certain type of acts in a chain of events in order to explore the given question or challenge.

The creative space should also have a set of written explicit rules that should always comply with the three laws.  The written rules are what drive the execution or exploration in the creative space.

All theatre devices also have a set of explicit and implicit “truths” or knowns. They also have a set of written or unwritten rules.


Theatre devices also may have within them a certain “charge” or a promise/possibility of a chain of events.  A gun or a chocolate cake is an example of such a “charged” theatre device.