Workshops and Participation
Alongside our production work, Bootworks are offering the chance for you to engage in the company’s work on a participatory level, with specially designed workshops for practitioners, teachers and students aged 14+. The Company’s CIC status means that we focus on activities which benefit the community and in particular, we have a key strand specifically regarding Workshops and Participation; Running workshops and related projects in a range of artistic settings and subjects.
These include...
Training and Skills projects: we offer a range of workshops which encourage young people to engage with and create professional-quality contemporary theatre.
Participation Activities: working with emerging and experienced artists and young people. Inducting and training local artists and young people to work with the company.
These activities give emerging artists the opportunity to work with arts professionals in a safe and empowering environment, and for the experienced artists, it provides a forum for creative practice and a chance to collaborate with others to create new work.
Black Box Workshops
We also run a range of workshop involving our innovative Black Box, ranging from single-session workshops to special workshop residencies (3-7 days) where participants make their own Black Box show!
Key areas for exploration include:
Participate
Participate is a special project involving the Black Box on tour. We take people from local schools, colleges, universities and youth groups and integrate them into our performance; training them up as cast and performing to the public as part of our latest show.
Other Workshops and wraparound activities
Starting a Theatre Company
Like many other theatre companies, we offer talks and workshops on how to start and run your own theatre company. We are trained by the ITC and have 10 years experience of running small-scale theatre projects. We can also offer careers advice on other areas of the creative and cultural industries such as teaching, and theatre management and administration.
The Starting a Theatre Company talk is a fairly straightforward lecture/workshop; key aspects of running a (small-scale) theatre collective are outlined ('creative' and 'business' contexts) and simple tasks are employed/given for the participants to try and develop their own ideas/material.
Key outcomes include writing an artistic policy, creating a budget and working towards devising a business plan and/or company portfolio: we place an importance in this talk on the 'business' aspects of being a company (making business plans, funding structures and finance, legal matters as well as the operational roles such as administration, marketing & publicity etc.). We can also deliver or tailor it in a few different ways to suit various groups.
Tailor-made and commissioned Projects
We welcome people contacting us with requests for specific workshop and engagements.
For more information on participation, education and workshops and INSET opportunities, contact James Baker, our education and participation coordinator at james@bootworkstheatre.co.uk