Page to Stage: The Decisions

Workshop Facilitator:
Geoff Saunders

Monday 29 July 5-7PM, Studio
Based on one of the PTC workshops run over Zoom during lockdown, this will allow each participant a taste (or reminder) of the early decision-making process when directing, or taking a part in, a play. Most of the workshop will be practical and experiential and will – it is hoped – be lots of fun.

Geoff Saunders has been involved in amateur theatre and indie films for many years, primarily as a writer, with over twenty plays and screenplays to his name. With PTC he has acted, directed and taken the role of dramaturg; his indie film credits include Assistant Director and Production Designer. He taught Drama on the Skills for Performing Arts course at Lewisham College for several years.

Impro – making it up as you go along -
an introduction to narrative improvisation

Workshop Facilitator:
Richard Ahsam

Tuesday 30 July 5-7PM, Studio

We’ve all seen Who’s line is it Anyway or Mock the Week. You just say the first (hopefully) funny thing that comes out of your head. Well – that’s that workshop finished with.

I would like to introduce you to Narrative improvisation. The ability to tell an extended story with a group of creatives.

“I’m going to make it up as I go along – It doesn’t need an introduction” Yes and No!
Yes - I would like you to say the first thing that comes into your head.
No - that first thing is not going to stop that story from ever developing to reach its full potential.

There are pitfalls with just taking a story and running with it and in this session, I hope we discover what some of those are and overcome them to tell a cracking story.  Afterall drama is just telling stories – isn’t it?

Richard Ahsam is an actor, playwright, teacher and dreamer.   Many years ago, I used to run the youth theatre with my wife Suki, when it was Group 64 but all of those young people are all grown up with children of their own – hopefully they are very happy. I was a cast member of the first improvised soap opera and have been teaching impro ever since. I used to run summer schools in Kent where the group would come up with whatever they wanted.  It was always interesting. I recently worked on an immersive history project in Hastings. I am now of an age where I get to play Santa.  How cool is that?

Music & Sound Design

Workshop Facilitator:
Nick Wells

Wednesday 31 July, 5-7PM, Studio

Music and sound effects are critical elements of a production. Although their main function is to support the text and the flow of action, sound design heightens the audience experience and works alongside the cast to conjure the magic of the theatre.

The session will show you how to work with the director's vision, search for sound effects, record your own sounds, find appropriate music, or create new work to combine into a series of sound cues for a show. The workshop will highlight how the backstage and tech teams work together with the director and the cast, and provide insights in how to engage with the script, use sound libraries, manage folders and file transfer, juggle different apps, and create a set of sound cues for the sound operator of the production. 

Bring a USB stick with 5 sounds and let's see how we could use those in a play setting.

Writer, musician and sound designer,
Nick Wells is the editor of Lights Up! the Putney Theatre Company podcast. Most recently he created the original score for The Lovely Bones (dir. Frances Bodiam), and current projects include original music and sound design for Borders by Henry Finlay (dir. Paul Dineen). He's played in bands, written songs and arrangements and recently remastered the soundtrack albums of Allen Stroud’s Lave Revolutions and The Fractal Series. He's currently writing new tracks for release in 2024 and 2025.

How to write and perform
your own material

Workshop Facilitator:
Annabel Miller
Friday 2 August 5-7PM, Studio

Do you have an idea for a play, or a monologue?  Are you struggling with how to get these ideas written into a cohesive script?  Would you ideally want to perform your work?  Join me for a fun and interactive workshop where I will help you get started, share my own writing techniques and disciplines, introduce you to the story arc, and by the end of the session get you up on your feet performing something that you have written.

Please bring: a notebook and pen and any ideas you already have.

Annabel Miller  is a professional actor and writer.  Following a corporate career she undertook a scriptwriting course at the Central School of Speech and Drama and then studied acting at Drama Studio London.  In 2023 she wrote and performed her debut play Veiled a one-woman show focusing on women facing various mid-life crises: parenting, work-based sexism, relationships and mental health.  This sold out at both the New Wimbledon Studio, and again this year for a run at the Putney Arts Theatre

.Acting credits include various harassed mums in adverts as well as recent theatre roles: Betty in Larkin with Women (Old Red Lion), Maggie in Look Behind You (The Tabard) and Melanie in When We Were Normal (Rose Theatre).

She can be heard on BBC Sounds in the radio play LUSUS, and appears in the Bafta-award winning game Dead Man's Phone.