Dramatic Storytelling is a creative writing workshop without pens using actor improvisational techniques dually derived from all the casting workshops I’ve run in schools and workplaces around the country when on searches for youngsters and unknown adults and from a life wrestling with writing.
Through comedy, games and improvisations, I encourage people to tell their own stories in a fun, safe context. Dramatic Storytelling Workshop is designed to use acting techniques to create original stories made up and spoken by the group themselves guided by me.
It’s good for promoting confidence in individuals and teams as they explore complex ideas, allowing them to access their own creativity, write immediately in the way they speak and help them perform their own stories.
I spend so much of my time thinking about story and procrastination antidotes, I like to bring it back to pure play for adults encouraging in-the-moment inspiration and eye-to-eye cooperation.
After warm-up games, it starts with ‘insta-stories’ going around a circle, one line at a time. I will show the dynamics of high status versus low status, how it underpins every interaction and how necessary it is to plug it into scenes. For the group improvs, I’ll show each team-of-four a photo of a location or a person, an object they pick at random from a bag and a line of dialogue. They invent on the spot and perform it as they go or alternatively take three minutes to spitball the idea and then perform it.
I play games like ‘Three-Headed Expert’, ‘Speed Impersonation’, ‘Press Conference’, ‘Two Truths, One Lie’ and ‘Shared Dream’ all as ways of illustrating just how easy it is to create story in the moment.
Then smaller groups of two are shown just how much acting and storytelling they’re engaged in on a daily basis in both telling true stories and re-animating stories they’ve heard from other sources – friends, colleagues, news and social media. Everyone who wants to tell an individual story – no matter how short or meandering, subtle or sledgehammer blunt – has the chance to do so.
It is a conscious decision to utilise the two forms of storytelling – playing a scene out in the moment and telling dramatic monologues. It varies the skills they’re using and refreshes their minds as we go.
Each workshop is designed in advance tailored to the specific needs and interests of the particular group. I also supply scenes I’ve written and direct them in the same way I would professional actors.
It’s all geared towards pointing out the path through the woods and giving or inviting stimulus whenever anyone gets stuck. Storytelling is easy when you dive right in.
I have presented the workshop at schools, arts centres and bookshops across Ireland and at international schools in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Bergen and Eindhoven.
Dramatic Storytelling Workshop is ideal as a fun, workplace team-building exercise and can be presented as a once-off event or as a course. Here’s a sample workshop structure.