From Field
to Stage

Transforming Agricultural & Food Waste into Environmentally Sustainable Biomaterials for the Performing Arts

Redesigning the Touring Model for Theatre

Theatre is facing a materials and logistics challenge. Production and touring costs are rising while the sector must reduce its environmental footprint. Large-scale productions still rely on bespoke sets, scenery and equipment manufactured for individual productions and transported between cities and countries.

The economic consequences are increasingly visible. Rising costs have contributed to the cancellation of multiple major Australian musicals: Back to the Future, Dear Evan Hansen, Waitress, Beetlejuice and AIDA. The $20 million AIDA production, co-invested by the South Australian Government, was forecast by Ernst & Young to attract 31,500 interstate and international visitors, generate $36 million in visitor expenditure and deliver $75 million in total economic impact. Its cancellation demonstrates the vulnerability of large-scale productions to escalating costs.

But what if theatre sets did not need to tour at all? This project proposes a new model: tour the digital design, not the physical set.

Renewable biomaterials derived from Australian agricultural and food waste will be investigated for additive manufacturing of theatre sets and scenic elements. Instead of transporting large sets between cities, the same digital design could be fabricated locally in each destination using renewable materials.

After each production, the set could be disassembled, reprocessed and printed into sets for the next visiting production, with the material potentially reused for up to 10 production cycles. This creates a circular production system in which materials remain in use rather than becoming waste at the end of a tour.

The model could reduce freight costs and emissions while creating new value from agricultural by-products, stimulating local advanced manufacturing and supporting Australian farmers.

Rather than simply replacing conventional theatre materials, the project asks whether we can redesign the touring model itself.