On Friday the 1st of November 2024, MixMatched ran a Page to Stage Workshop as part of Canterbury Art’s festival Umbrella Project. The workshop was aimed in supporting participants in having more confidence both in their writing prowess and in being able to perform their work.
Page to Stage was an intimate workshop of Neurodivergent+ participants who might want to write their own stage performance… it’s main focus was upon storytelling, and how storytelling might differ on the page… to on the stage.
The workshop began with participants getting to know eachother and sharing an experience of an ‘Unhappy Holiday’ (the theme for MixMatched end of year show!) – The participants then took part in a number of creative writing activities upon the same topic with prompts such as: ‘Write a short piece about the worst present you ever received’, and ‘Can you remember a time at a holiday (or festival) where someone ‘Faux Passed’.
Participants drew from their own memories, and it was a really nice bonding experience – there was a mixture of ‘bitter-sweet’ memories, with some being quite hilarious, and others slightly more regretful.
This exorcise led into a discussion of the ways in which written story differed from spoken. Participants were encouraged to add to two lists ‘writing for page’, ‘writing for stage’, and we discussed dramatic parameters around each. The next activity involved story cards; each participant picked a card and had to describe it to the rest of the group (while sitting). With the same card they were then asked to stand on stage, and describe the card more ‘physically’. Most of the more ‘flat’ descriptions turned into stories, with elements of mime and physicality.
We then all had a short break before all participants were told to choose one of the short writing exorcises from activity one… but turn it into a spoken story for stage. The began by planning it out in six bullet points: two for the beginning, two for the middle, two for end. They then had to plot these six bullet points on a ‘Climax’ graph, showing where the ‘action’ was in the story, and try and think of one dramatic convention (prop, playing with voice, mime/physical motion/noise) to add to each of the six bullet points .
… with not much time left each participant was asked to pair up and have a go at performing their story to the other person, while the other person watched and fed back suggestions of how the story could be ‘enhanced’.
THE FINALE… it was time to put on a short show of our own!!! – Spoken word style, each participant took to the stage to tell their ‘Unhappy Holiday’ story… ranging from antidotes about dinner, children’s clothes given to adults for presents, sullen fathers and awkward conversations, each participant managed to ‘pimp their performance’.
We reflected in a circle afterwards, and, to my relief, all members of the group felt as if their understanding of stage and storytelling had been enhanced… and they’d met some lovely people while doing it!