Mission
To engage our region with new and reimagined theatre in intimate settings, creating a body of work that moves, connects, and challenges all who join the conversation.
What’s In a Name?
We named Thrown Stone after an allegory by the 17th-century philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza. Opposing Descartes’ conception of free will, he argued that like thrown stones, we are set in motion by “the impulsion of an external cause” and are “necessarily determined by some external cause to exist and operate in a fixed and determinate manner.”
So much for free will.
But Spinoza goes deeper. He asks us to imagine the stone is “capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavouring, as far as it can, to continue to move.”
So, if we’re all thrown stones — already in motion at the inception of consciousness — what is our agency? What is our power to affect our trajectory? And what happens when stones inevitably collide? These are questions that theatre is uniquely equipped to address. The recognition of our shared “thrown stone” predicament is a lever for compassion, and finds its best expression in the live space between artist and audience.