What are theatre forum workshops? Theatre Forum is about LIFE, actually - the good, the bad and the plain frustrating! You bring your ideas and stories about you, other people and the services you receive. Using drama we can rehearse positive change.

What would make life better for you? My starting point is that we all learn from each other. By listening to each others’ stories about life – good or bad - we can make drama that helps us understand ourselves and each other. Positive change can be rehearsed using image and forum drama – techniques that turn real life into sketches where the active audience, ‘spect-actors’, rehearse alternative actions.  Each scene is played out several times with different solutions. Legislative theatre is a standard setting drama – ‘rules’ about how we want to be treated by other people in a wide range of situations and settings are rehearsed and we can move towards writing social contracts. Game playing, movement, painting, sculpture, cartoons, video and sound work will inform and enhance the drama.

“Ed has raised the confidence, self-esteem and communication skills of all those who have taken part in his programmes. He has the ability to reach the most challenging learners with his gentle, non-threatening, yet tenacious approach.” Joan Forster, General Manager, Cumbria Training Partnership “It is fair to say that no other part of the course is so uniformly valued by our students. Comments such as ‘I learned more in two days than over the whole three years’ and ‘I thought I valued people with a learning disability but I was shocked at some of the things I learned about myself’ are typical.” Dr. Steve Mee, Senior Lecturer, University of Cumbria