More Than Musicals
“If you think we only offer inspiration from musicals, think again….”
We offer an array of different themes for our workshops; not only musicals, but dance, drama and many speciality skills.
Please click on the tabs below for more information.
West End Theatre Workshops provides educational workshops designed to enhance the literary imagination of students around the country.
We choose books listed on the National Curriculum Guide and we “Bring Them to Life” using a series of performance based skills that encourage young minds to delve into the hidden literature and narrative of each novel.
All our leaders are professional actors who have appeared in the West End productions of these titles. They boast training and experience of the highest level; their charisma and passion encouraging even the shyest of students to bring their ideas into a safe and supportive environment.
What is our aim?
• To create a performance based upon their chosen title, using the individual knowledge and personal insight of each student.
• To encourage students to develop a further interest into their chosen title, by bringing each character, storyline and literary term to life.
• To create discussions amongst the group; encouraging each student to voice their own perceptions of the piece and the similarities or differences between each individual view.
• To work together as a group to express values of literature.
• To encourage students to read literature for fun.
How are these workshops structured?
We suggest running these workshops in place of one current class, so as to fit in seamlessly with your timetable.
Our workshops are designed to suit each age group throughout the school. We work with you and your team to choose the title which will best appeal to each year group. In many cases several year groups have studied the same title, in which case this is an appropriate theme to choose. Alternatively, you may choose a title on your future curriculum, or an individual title that would interest your students independently of your programme of studies.
Which age groups would benefit from our workshops?
Our workshops are suitable for all primary and secondary students. You choose the most suitable title from our range of literature below and we ensure each session is catered appropriately towards each individual age group.
Which literature titles do we base our workshops upon?
Blood Brothers
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Goodnight Mister Tom
Horrible Histories
Lord of the Flies
Matilda
Peter Pan
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
The Railway Children
Shakespeare (All main titles listed on the National Curriculum)
War Horse
We also take book requests!
If you would like us to bring an Educational Workshop to your school, please contact us using the “Make Enquiry” page:
About Puppetry:
Puppetry is an entertaining and rewarding theatrical language and is a fantastic way for children and young people to create and play. It encourages imagination, focus, team work and stamina; much like the requirements for dama, singing and dance. Storytelling is at the heart of all puppetry, and it is magical when a puppet wakes up, looks around and begins a tale, supported by it’s puppeteers and captivating the audience.
Introducing our puppeteer, Abigail Matthews:
Abigail has worked on a variety of productions in the early stages of her career including musical theatre, physical theatre and puppetry, plays, cabarets, pantomime, fringe theatre and street theatre.
Her exploration into the world of puppetry began in 2012 when she became an alternate Aslan puppeteer in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe‘ working with Max Humphries, Steve Tiplady and Jane Leany to learn the ethos and craft of team puppetry. Since then, she has continued to work with a myriad of puppets in subsequent performances, most notably in the acclaimed:
West End National Theatre production of War Horse, where she worked directly with Handspring Puppet Company and associate director of puppetry, Tommy Luther.
She then went on to join a team of ten puppeteers working with director Ivan Thorely and designer Caroline Bowman at ‘Puppets With Guts‘ to devise and perform their street theatre piece ‘Citizen Squid‘ at the Lyric Hammersmith: Theatre In The Square and Watford Imagine Festival.
Most recently she has worked on the West End and National Tour production of Goodnight Mister Tom with puppet director and designer Toby Olie.
“The puppeteer pulls the puppet’s strings. The puppet pulls the audience’s strings. The audience pulls the puppeteer’s strings.”
At West End Theatre Workshops, our whole team are professional “triple-threat” performers.
However, having three skills is not as impressive as it used to be!
We feel incredibly privileged to be working within an industry that is constantly changing and evolving to welcome in original musicals, glittering costumes and innovative ideas. We are seeing puppets on our West End stages, skates on our screens and tap-dancing umbrellas on our streets. These fresh ideas are so wonderfully exciting – they certainly keep us on our toes!
Therefore we recognise the need to constantly update our skills…
…and if we are learning new skills it seems only fair we share them with you!
Whether your students perform for fun but would like a little more confidence, are auditioning for the next big drama school and would like some advice on audition technique, or if they have just always fancied trying out stilts – we have the session for you!
Our Skills Workshops include:
- Audition Technique
- Improvisation
- Monologue/Script Reading
- Ensemble/Group/Solo Singing
- Confidence Boosting
- Puppetry Skills
- Skipping
- Music and Sight-Reading
- Rollerskating
- Film/TV/Screen Acting
- Pantomime
- Directed Scenes
- Stage Combat
- Understanding Shakespeare
- Make-Up For Stage or Screen
Enquire now for more information.
“…After all, sharing is caring…”
“If DANCE is more ‘your thing’ than musicals, you’re in the right place!”
Oh yes, at West End Theatre Workshops we are proud to have some truly incredible dancers on our team.
Dance may be your passion – well it’s their passion too! We haven’t yet found a dance style that they are not brilliant at and we can offer some fantastic workshop packages to include any of the following styles:
Tap
Contemporary
Street Jazz
Ballet/Pointe
Commercial
Lyrical
Jazz
Modern
Ballroom
Salsa
Acrobatics
Freestyle / Experimental
Irish
Choreography