Workshops

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS

We are delighted to announce the first of our series of Shakespeare Workshops for 2024! 

Our aim in these workshops is to offer students working towards their GCSE exams the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of their set Shakespeare play in both an academic and practical context.

The workshops will be held at the Playground Theatre (W10), on the 25th and 26th of April. They will be run by our associate director, Jonny Wiles, who will be joined by three other actors to work on key moments from students’ focal plays. We also want to give students the opportunity to take an active role in the performance of key scenes, and to act alongside industry professionals on these extraordinary texts. 

These workshops are open to students who are new to Shakespeare, as well as to those who are revising and recapping on their plays ahead of their exams. 

We will be running further workshops with focus on A-Level texts later this year. 

 

PAST PROJECTS

Schools' Workshop on The Merchant of Venice

In October 2023, students from Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, joined our artistic director, Bill Alexander, for a morning of workshops on The Merchant of Venice at the Playground Theatre.

Bill gave the students a view into the play’s original context, and introduced them to its core themes and ideas, many of which are still extremely visible and pressing in the modern day.

He worked with several of the actors in attendance, including company members Jonny Wiles and Jeremy Peckham, to present some of the play’s early scenes for the students. He also invited the students to perform scenes themselves, and the students’ performances and direction brought out the depth and versatility of Shakespeare’s language and characterisation.

 

Workshops and Festivals

In the winter of 2022, we led workshops with women at The Venus Centre, Bootle featuring characters from The Tempest, called Ebbing and Flowing - The Eleanor Rathbone Trust awarded us funding to lead the project.

The Arts Council gave us a grant in summer 2022 for Apples and Eyes 2 + Wildfest, a free inclusive community festival celebrating the Arts and Nature coupled with a performing arts 4 day summer school for young people from 14 - 19. Over 3000 people came to Wildfest in One Garden, Stanmer Park, Brighton.

In the autumn of '21 we produced our first show, a new 6 character adaptation A Merchant of Venice at The Playground Theatre W10. We led creative writing workshops with a grant from Clifford Chance with participants from the St Charles' Mental Health Unit that focussed on themes from the play.

In summer 2021 we were awarded an Arts Council grant for Apples and Eyes, our first young people's performing arts summer school in Racehill Community Orchard in Brighton.

During the pandemic we ran regular Shakespeare playreading sessions, scene workshops and a playwriting competition with Props Mental Health that attracted over 100 entries.

In the spring of 2019 we led workshops entitled All that Glitters is not Gold - but it's my time to shine - How do we know who we are? With Womeninprison.org.uk in Woking we ran weekly drop in sessions for former prisoners, devising work with the women for a performance for International Women's Day. The aim of the programme was to give each participant the opportunity to tell her story.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Mashup at HMP Styal  - Mary Chater and Professor Charlotte Scott led the ACE funded project in partnership with Goldsmiths in August 2019 and worked with women towards a performance produced at the prison. Mary then returned in December to work on a Christmas show for friends and family members.

In the summer of 2017 we were awarded our first Arts Council grant for Alien's Order, a project with the Italian Community in Peterborough.  https://vimeo.com/233367113 Alien's Order video that comprises pop up street theatre sketches performed as part of the two day Italian festival in the city.