#workshop leader

Debbie Peterson is a Professional Keynote Speaker, Workshop Leader and Mindset Expert who works with executives and professionals to develop more confidence and clarity in their career experience. She has educated and inspired corporations, charitable organizations, and professionals to create the personal mindset necessary to produce consistent professional results. 

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Very much for the idea of spontaneous and improvised work, Joan Littlewood set the group, Theatre Workshop, and through inspiration from Bertolt Brecht, started creating more individual methods for the group. Littlewood encourage audience participation, onstage improvisation, as well as often altered the text so it was more open to interpretation. Her clients were the members of ‘Theatre Workshop’, the group she founded, so unlike Boal, they were specific clients. In Littlewood’s workshop’s the focus was devising theatre, as she was very much for the idea of spontaneoud creation, as apposed to text based performance. They would also teach the actor the necessary skills to carry a performance through use of instinct, and how to react to and use the audience to your advantage. Boal and Littlewood were similar in the sense, that they allowed audience participation, (even though technically in Boal’s case it was the actor) as well improvisations, which would come about in the Theatre of the Oppressed when a spect-actor takes the place of the actor on stage and does the scenario differently. I consider the two of them to be quite similar, and the only patent difference is there clients.  Being Boal was born in the 1930's in Brazil, this was the time of the presidential reign of Getuilio Vargas, who ran the country as a dictatorship from 1937 to 1945. Vargas in that time initally issued a suppression on Communist movements as well as the Cohen Plan to seize, and set up the Estado Navo (or New State), where he then disbanded all other political parties. Being Boal's younger years were spent growing up into this may have initially sparked the idea of the 'Theatre of the Oppressed'. What really set it up though was when he was exiled from Brazil by the dictating military after being kidnapped off of the streets, and tortured in 1971. The reason for his exile to Argentina, where he lived for five years in which time wrote his book 'Theatre of the Oppressed', was that the military thought he was a threat what with his controversial ways of teaching, and that fact of him being a cultural activist. Because of this, i believe he set up this ideology as a way of letting people speak against those oppressing them, as he couldn't back then, through fear of being punished by either Vargas or the military. Littlewood had similar incidents due to her beliefs. In 1939 she was put under surveillance by MI5, and in 1941, she was banned from broadcasting her show by the BBC, all due to supporting the Communist Party. The MI5 lifted this ban two years after, as well as stopping the surveillance altogether after finding out she no longer had any ties with the political party any more. Active mostly during the period of the two World War's in Britian, Joan would have lived through the many after affects of it, and majority of her work centred around such things for example her production of; 'Oh what a lovely War' and 'Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be'. Though improvisation isn't quite as free as some other techniques, you can still do what you want within the margin  and i believe her intital run ins with the law over her political views, as well as the situation of the countries economy as a result of the wars, is what made Littlewood opt for this style of working, as it gives her actors that little bit of freedom that the society wouldn't of. "I really do believe in the community. I really do believe in the genius in every person. And I've heard that greatness come out of them, that great thing which is in people." This is a quote by Littlewood herself which also justifies why she opted to use improvisation, as she wanted her actors to exhibit there genius inside them and give Joan something to me astounded by, along with their audiences.

We were given these a while back to help us what information we had and what details we would have to ascertain about the selected workshop group. The spider diagram clearly shows what we'd have to find out; age, their experience in drama, different backgrounds, EALs etc. the factor of EALs being a potential struggle, and we would have to talk and be physically really heightened in order for them to comprehend what we were saying and asking of them. These are the kind of things you have to think about when doing a workshop.

Establish roles amongst you if in a group, so who is leading the workshop, and who will be participating and more on the outside. The initial step is first surveying the kind of participants you have so you can tailor it to suit them, from then on its about choosing the right activities for them and allocate time taken on each one also. Make sure to balance between fun, and useful, as well as individual and team activities. Use different applications such as improvisations, use of text, devising, character development etc, so that there is a variety and it doesn’t come predictably for the person involved. Explain what it is the workshop is designed to do and what you want people to get out of it at the end. You must establish ground rules from the beginning for people to abide by in order to keep proceedings running nicely. Start the workshop by having ice breakers to introduce yourself to the group, or indeed the members to each other. Name games are a good start, as it’s a quick and friendly way of people introducing themselves. To lift the energy in the room play some quick, easy and fun games, so to get everyone engaged and physically ready for the session. Choices like Bang, Zip, Zap, Boing and Cat a Mouse are good, just be wary the last one doesn’t get too physical. With young kids the ‘Banana Song’ is a good little exercise to start with. Once everyone is acquainted and you’ve had some fun, move on to something like trust exercises, so that they learn to trust each other, as well you learning to trust in them. Make sure to use both time and space efficiently throughout, so when something isn’t quite working out as planned, don’t be scared to intervene and move on to the next part. Enhance the workshop by using different elements, like music, props and costume. There is a possibility that there will be incidents when certain participants get a bit aggressive and difficult. You must first acknowledge the problem, and then try a way to resolve it. If it is a case of noise, do the freeze game. When the noise levels get to high, call out ‘freeze’ and wait til all the participants have frozen. The aim is to be a quick as possible, and to keep improving the speed in which they are still. Be sure to give out accurate times, or they will not buy into the game. This convention must be set up from the beginning as to the participants it’s a game, for you it’s a mechanism to stop the noise pollution in the room. If it gets to the part where you are to be harmed, take the correct physical action to prevent anything from happening. End by asking how the workshop went, and getting the members to feedback what they got out of it, so that you can evaluate what worked, and where improvements need to be made. 

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