Alternative Facts Pty Ltd represents the artistic output of theatre maker David Williams, producer Suzie Franke, and collaborators – works of social relevance, aesthetic rigour and emotional impact. Based around research, interviews, transcripts and public documents, Alternative Facts creates truly unique performances that open spaces for public conversation around matters of civic and political importance. Surprising, engaging, and elegantly constructed, the theatre of Alternative Facts explores contemporary social life in all its complexity, messiness, beauty, and strangeness.
Alternative Facts is driven by the strong belief that this is a critical moment to reappraise the political, social and aesthetic ambitions of ‘reality’, ‘verbatim’ or ‘documentary’ theatre. This kind of theatre has risen to great prominence over the past twenty years due to the perceived failures of journalism to effectively cope with political deception and ‘spin’. But what might the future of the documentary theatre artform look like in the era of the ‘alternative fact’? What continuing impact can such theatre have when its foundational principles – truth, authenticity, realness – are no longer valued within civic discourse?
Alternative Facts is driven by an urgent need to take stock of what the continued purpose of this type of theatre might be, and the ways in which theatre might continue to change the world, one person at a time.