Into the workshop!

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As you have seen from this website, there are many places and ways in which you can study: at your desk at home, in a classroom or in a library using books; consulting websites or articles in journals; or, perhaps, sitting in the kitchen with an assignment. Unfortunately, none of these is entirely suitable as a way of studying Modern Drama. The notion of a workshop has long been used to study drama, and organising a workshop of your own is a great way to start you off!

Workshop

One way of studying or investigating something is to go into a laboratory and carry out experiments. In the field of Drama this is known as a workshop approach, although one of the most famous theatre practitioners of modern times, Jerzy Grotowski, did, in fact, call his centre the Theatre Laboratory.

The term ‘workshop’ has been used in drama for the last 50 years or so and was made particularly famous by Joan Littlewood: a controversial director who was responsible for the success of O What a Lovely War and A Taste of Honey at her Theatre Workshop based at the Theatre Royal, Stratford in East London.

Through the use of workshops playwrights and directors can:

• Try out material before creating a final script
• Explore the potential of a text
• Experiment with methods of performance
• Investigate character and motivation through improvisation
• Motivate groups and communities to devise plays from original sources

Students can do something similar in a workshop, such as:

• Understand a text as a blueprint for action
• Explore levels of meaning in the text
• Understand the dilemmas facing the characters
• Recognise the language characteristics of the characters
• Investigate the motivation and actions of the characters
• Explore the appropriate conventions of the play
• Understand the performance style appropriate to the play
• Explore the world of the play

Remember that drama is something you DO rather than something you read!

You may not think of yourself as an actor: you do not have to have highly developed performance skills to benefit from a workshop approach.

Organising a Workshop

You can easily create your own drama workshop as a means of studying drama provided you have a virtually empty room with a few chairs and, perhaps, a couple of stage blocks or rostra. Follow these guidelines to ensure your workshop is a success!

1. Involve a minimum of 6 students, but be prepared to work in pairs or threes.
2. Ensure that everyone is ‘working’ but remember this includes active and more passive involvement like careful observation.
3. Set yourself time limits for tasks.
4. Sit in a circle and ensure an open atmosphere for discussion and reflection.
5. Make notes on your discoveries and processes.
6. Experiment with many ways of arriving at conclusions.

Workshop activities may include:

• Work on a small piece of text, tried in various ways
• Imaginary scenes between characters
• Work derived from stage-directions
• Games and improvisations to explore themes and ideas
• Activities to test the conventions of a play
• Devising new scenes and presentations

This content has been written by Ken Pickering, author of Studying modern drama