How to Organise a Virtual Development Workshop...

…a few tips to make a Zoom workshop work for you 

This week I’m doing my first ever Workshop via ZOOM.

My long-time collaborator, Mitchell Cushman, and I are working on my solo show about my hometown, Kitchener-Waterloo.⁠
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It’s is a storytelling show created through loads of research and interviews.  In the show about 8-10 stories (from 1 min - 20 min) are told to the audience, but there are 5 options for each story ’slot’.  That’s about 40-50 stories total, held in my brain (or approx. 6 hrs of material).  ⁠
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Each audience sees a different show depending on how they answer my questions about ‘home’.⁠
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One of the things were focussing on this week is how to map this relationship with untold stories of place, visually.  ⁠
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The show originally premiered in London in 2017 at Camden People's Theatre and then played in Berlin at Theaterdiscounter who co-produced the piece. ⁠
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I premiered it without any funding but some came through from the Canada Council last year and Soulpepper came on board to support further development of the piece too. 

Mitchell and I were supposed to be in one of their gorgeous studios today, having what Mitchell calls ‘lively debates’ – what I call arguments – jamming ideas with designers and examining the piece’s physical vocabulary – in space. ⁠
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I asked you, in my letter about the value of scratching new work, if you’d like to know about how I’d go about organising a virtual workshop via Zoom, and lots of your wrote back saying ‘yes.’
 
So! 

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HOW TO ORGANISE A VIRTUAL WORKSHOP TO DEVELOP A SHOW

  • What is a workshop?
    I’m sure there are other definitions, but for me: a Workshop is condensed period of time, usually 2-5 days, in a studio, dedicated to developing your show, without the pressure of a final product/opening soon. Some include an informal performance at the end.

  • Reasons for doing one
    Here are a few reasons to organise a workshop:

    • You’re ready get up on your feet to experiment with your text, using those findings to inform rewrites

    • You’re ready to work with outside eye or director and need someone to push against and work with on the show

    • You want to test different staging ideas, and/or add dance/movement pieces, develop a physical or visual language you want to integrate in text

    • You’re keen to get collaborators into the room with you to trial design ideas in situ


  • The ‘Essentials Checklist’ to go through before you plan a workshop
    Depending on whether or not you have funding or free space for a limited amount of time, these questions may need to be answered in a different order. Consider them a buffet, not a set menu and make sure you answer them all before you begin:

    • What is the purpose of this workshop?
      Know your WHY & ALWAYS go in with a set of objectives which you share with your collaborators. Establish one or two big goals. Determine a short list of questions you want to address.

    • How much time do we need?
      Or how can we work with the time we can afford? This will depend on funding and availability of space. Be flexible and creative.

    • Who needs to be in the room and for how much time?
      I.E. A director, an outside eye, experts (if it’s a project that relies heavily on research), actors, designers, a stage manager, etc. Again, depending on funding there are different models you can use to determine how much you ask of your team.

    • How many productive hours a day can we work?

      Be realistic. Factor in writing time and designing time. Avoid burn out.

    • Are we going to do an informal performance at the end of the week?
      This is a double edge sword. It can be great for accountability or to introduce people to your project BUT you can also lose time to rehearsing something that really isn’t ready yet.

  • How we’ve structured our digital workshop

    As I mentioned my goal is to work on the visual and sonic language of the show and to test how those things inform the structure and staging. The other goal is to begin sourcing more materials and stories from other people.

    This means, we have 4 people involved in the workshop: me, the writer and performer, Mitchell, the dramaturg, a scenic designer and a sound designer.

    Zoom is killer and we all agreed 2-3hours a day is all we can stand. We’re working M-F, and Mitchell and I are meeting most mornings for 2-3hours. On three of the mornings we’re joined by our designers for an hour. And another morning this week we spoke with an Indigenous Elder about how to respectfully make a show about a piece of land in Canada.

    During the afternoons we all work on our own. I write or conduct interviews with KW people, the designers work on ideas and Mitchell considers staging ideas and reads work I’ve generated the day before.The next morning we discuss and share what we’ve worked on.

    It’s been a really nice process and I recommend limiting the Zoom-time highly.

    We chose to not do a public or invited reading at the end of the week, because I know myself.If I knew I’d have to perform I’d stop creating and go into actor-rehearsal mode – even if it was a work-in-progress reading.With that pressure off we’re able to use this week to make big creative strides.

    In our subsequent workshop, we’ll be ready to share work with a small audience.

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If you’re interested to know more about how to get your work put on, and how to make money from your art - check out my Crash Course on Self-Producing. Now available here!

self-producingHaley McGeetheatre maker, workshop, colla, CREATIVE PROCESS