Bring your experience.
Meet other actors.
See where the story takes you.
Practical sessions exploring improvisation, character and interactive theatre, for adults with some acting or performance experience.
Explore how characters, relationships and stories develop through what happens between people.
Start with what's happening.
Someone says something you weren’t expecting. Another performer falls silent. A small gesture changes how you see them.
You notice. Something shifts. You respond.
Our work begins with these encounters. Through practical exercises and fictional situations, you’ll explore how to stay connected to other people and allow your character’s responses to develop in the moment.
Sometimes that means speaking. Sometimes it means doing something. Sometimes it means allowing a silence to continue.
You don’t have to arrive knowing what will happen.
How we work:
01.
EXPLORE
Begin with a character, a relationship or a situation. Discover what gives you something to play.
02.
PLAY
Enter the encounter. Pay attention to the people you’re working with and allow their contributions to affect yours.
03.
COMPLICATE
Introduce a change: new information, a different relationship, an interruption or someone entering the scene. Explore what happens next.
04.
REFLECT
Pause and consider what happened. What changed? When did the encounter feel alive? What could you explore when you try again?
No script? No problem.
Think you can stay in character when the unexpected happens? Draw your cards and find out.
A facilitator.
An ensemble.
Room to discover.
David Claridge facilitates the sessions, creating situations, offering prompts and introducing challenges that give actors something to explore together.
You’ll have opportunities to try different responses, revisit encounters and learn through watching as well as performing.
The discoveries come from the work you make with one another.
Choose your way in.
When the audience becomes involved.
Interactive theatre brings performers and audiences into direct contact within a fictional world.
A Guest might ask a difficult question, misunderstand something or become determined to help. Their contribution changes the encounter, and you need to respond as your character.
That freedom sits alongside responsibility: to the fictional circumstances, your fellow performers and the audience’s experience.
We explore how to hold those things together while leaving room for something unexpected to happen.
Know the story. Know your character. Then let go.
Is this for me?
Our sessions are for adults who already have some acting or performance experience.
You might be a professional actor, an amateur performer, a performance student or someone returning to acting.
You don’t need previous interactive theatre experience or confidence in improvisation. You do need a willingness to take part, work with others and try things before you know how they will turn out.
Some acting or performance experience required.
Minimum age: 18.
Bespoke training.
Your performers. Your stories. Your challenges.
Every production has its own demands. Insolent Retinue offers tailored training for theatre companies and organisations working in immersive, interactive and event-based performance.
From developing confident character performers to supporting those responsible for guiding an audience through an unfolding story, our workshops focus on the practical skills your productions need.
Delivered online or in person, with sessions designed around your performers, experience levels and performance format.
Let's talk about your training needs.