BEAUTIFUL BOY
Suicide is among the leading causes of death for young people: WHO reports that globally and in Europe suicides are one of the main causes of death in the 15–29 age group.
Estimates indicate that roughly 10–20% of children and adolescents have a mental disorder in any given year (depression, anxiety disorders, behavioral disorders). Some sources (UNICEF, WHO) state about 1 in 7 to 1 in 5 young people.
Suicide is more common among young men in Europe.
Risk factors include social isolation, the online/virtual world, stigma, lack of access to care, crises, and a shortage of community on‑site shared experiences.
WHAT
BEAUTIFUL BOY is an immersive theatrical project with social impact.
BEAUTIFUL BOY is a play about young people (especially men) somehow too disconnected from the here and now and, at a time when children are becoming men, unable to find their way in the world of the here and now.
BEAUTIFUL BOY was written by Tereza Dobiášová as a reminiscence of her childhood at the side of her autistic brother unable to find his way into adulthood. It is a play about overcoming trauma and finding one's own voice.
It should become an immersive theatrical mass that helps overcoming.
HOW
BEAUTIFUL BOY features four professional actors + a CHOIR of insignificant ones. It is a choir of people threatened by social exclusion (they may be foreigners, young or elderly people disadvantaged by mental, physical, or social disabilities—in short, people who, for various reasons, find themselves on the margins of society).
The CHOIR plays an important role in the performance – it is one of the characters.
To make this happen, actors, lecturers, and therapists work in the place (where this performance takes place) regularly (for approximately 2–3 months) with a group of people at risk of exclusion, from which CHOIR will ultimately emerge, offering them theatrical (and related) means as a medium for liberation, self-empowerment, and self-expression, which can lead to self-assertion in the world.
Actors, lecturers, and therapists gradually guide them toward integration of their role into the production.
In cooperation with TPO (IT)
Planned opening: 2028