As NSW’s Premier Theatre for Children and Families, this dynamic image-based company provides quality theatre that engages and challenges the child within us all. Theatre of Image (TOI) is committed to developing a creatively substantial mainstage theatre for young people, which also reflects moral, ethical and spiritual considerations and promotes diversity.

A TOI production provides an enriching and lingering experience for children, young people and adults alike.

TOI believes in transporting a child/young person out of an ordinary domestic environment or classroom into a dark or neutral, mysterious space where no matter what their cultural, educational or social background, they come together to experience the wonder of a full-scale live performance - a performance that will enrich the spirit, emotionally and intellectually, leaving indelible images to fire the imagination and ignite creative expression, even in the most dormant of imaginations.

Performance Style

TOI is based on a visual artist’s perception of theatre; it has been defined as dream theatre or visual theatre or theatre of visions but is now thought of as a form of contemporary theatre.

TOI tells its stories through a distinctive, visual style of performance combining images, words and music into one composition. A production by TOI can see any number of combinations of performers skilled in mime, puppetry, acting, dance and song, integrated with an inventiveness of contemporary production techniques: film, video, animation, sound, music, light, costume and puppets (shadow, rod, string, body and glove).

Kim Carpenter describes the theatrical form of TOI as a ‘tableau vivant’ but with more emotion. “My performers must include emotion...We are dealing with poetic theatre, and the poetic experience comes through the combination of sensory forces, through sound which is music, through voice and through images, pictures.” A significant aspect of TOI productions is that they have all had an Australian composer working on them. Carpenter notes that the three main ‘drivers’ of the productions are the director/designer, the composer and the writer. Importantly he notes that they do not double up in the telling of the story. This helps to show the unique language style of Carpenter’s productions. TOI tells stories in a wide range of ways not merely through the dialogue.

Teaching Resources

The Department of Education & Training proudly supports the work of Theatre of Image, Sydney’s theatre for children.

• Textile Student's Classroom Activities (PDF)
• Children's Theatre and Aspects of Childhood (PDF)
  - Paper developed by the Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University