EVENT THEATRE TRAINING
BIRMINGHAM
Train for the unexpected.
Character first.
Story always.
Practical training for actors who want to perform without the safety net of a conventional script.
Build characters that survive beyond rehearsed dialogue. Respond to audiences. Improvise with purpose. Protect the story when things don't go according to plan.
Some acting experience required.
Event Theatre experience optional.
18+.
WHAT IS EVENT THEATRE?
The audience is in the room with you.
And they can talk back.
Event theatre takes performance out of the traditional theatre environment and places it inside an event.
There may be no stage. No auditorium. And no fourth wall separating performer from audience.
Instead, the audience shares the fictional world with you.
They can approach your character. Ask questions. Offer information. Form opinions. Misunderstand what's happening. Or become fascinated by something you never expected them to notice.
You can't know exactly what they're going to do.
That's what makes Event Theatre different - and why performing it requires a particular set of skills.
You're not just performing a story.
You're performing inside one.
THE ACTOR'S CHALLENGE
Acting without the safety net.
Prepared enough to know the world.
Free enough to respond to it.
Event Theatre isn't about making everything up.
And it isn't about memorising exactly what you're going to say.
It sits somewhere between the two.
You need to know your character well enough to respond when nobody has written the answer. You need to understand the story well enough to recognise what matters. And you need to listen closely enough to respond to what's actually happening - rather than what you expected to happen.
Preparation gives you something to play with.
Improvisation lets you play with what actually happens.
Then somebody does something you weren't expecting.
That's where the training begins.
THE EVENT ACTOR'S TOOLKIT
Five skills. One performance.
You don't use these skills one at a time.
In Event Theatre, you're building a character, listening to another performer, responding to a Guest and thinking about the story - often all in the same conversation.
That's why we train them together.
01.
Character
Know who would say it.
Objectives, relationships, attitudes and secrets give you something to play when there isn't a line waiting for you.
We train: character choices · objectives · relationships · status · consistency
02.
Improvisation
Respond to what actually happened.
Stop planning the next line. Listen, accept what's happening and make choices that belong to your character and the world.
We train: listening · responding · adapting · accepting offers · purposeful improvisation
03.
Audience Interaction
Let the audience into the story.
Talk with Guests rather than performing at them. Handle questions, interruptions and unexpected contributions without dropping the fictional world.
We train: direct interaction · questioning · inclusion · boundaries · recovering from the unexpected
04.
Storytelling
Know what needs protecting.
Recognise when information matters, when something needs repeating and when improvisation is beginning to pull the story somewhere it shouldn't go.
We train: story awareness · revealing information · withholding information · redirecting · maintaining the fictional world
05.
Ensemble
You're not doing this alone.
Notice what the other performers need. Share focus. Support an actor who's in difficulty. Recognise when the best choice is to stop talking and let somebody else play.
We train: listening · support · shared focus · offers · ensemble awareness
Character First.
Story Always.
The skill is knowing what the moment needs.
INSIDE THE TRAINING ROOM
We don't just talk about it.
You'll be on your feet.
Event Theatre is practical. The training is too.
We use exercises, character work, improvisation and performance scenarios to put the skills under pressure.
You might be asked to build a character from a handful of facts. Hold a conversation while protecting a piece of information. Deal with a Guest who has completely misunderstood the story. Support another performer who's struggling. Or respond when new information changes everything.
The point isn't to find the perfect response.
It's to listen, make a choice, see what happens - and learn from it.
01.
EXPLORE
Try the skill in a focused exercise.
Understand what you're doing, why it matters and what changes when you make a different choice.
02.
PLAY
Put it into character.
Stop thinking about the exercise and start responding as somebody inside the fictional world.
03.
COMPLICATE
Add another actor. A Guest. New information. Conflicting objectives.
Make the situation less predictable.
04.
REFLECT
Look at what happened.
What felt truthful? What helped the story? What could you try differently next time?
Try it. Play it. Change it. Try again.
Training should give you somewhere safe to take risks before an audience gives you nowhere to hide.
CHOOSE HOW YOU TRAIN
Two ways to train.
Come for one focused evening. Or step inside a story for four sessions.
Both are practical Event Theatre training. The difference is how you want to work.
FLEXIBLE TRAINING
TRAINING NIGHTS
One evening. One focus. Two hours.
Standalone sessions exploring a particular Event Theatre skill.
Come to the subjects that interest you. Return whenever you want to develop something new. There's no need to commit to a course.
Good if you want to:
-
work on a specific skill
-
try Insolent Retinue for the first time
-
keep your Event Theatre skills active
-
fit training around other commitments
From £30 per night
STORY-LED TRAINING
THE BLOCKS
Four sessions. One developing story.
Take a character through a specially written fictional world as new relationships, information and complications emerge across four sessions.
Everything builds towards the Long Form.
Good if you want to:
-
develop a character over several weeks
-
explore story and relationships in greater depth
-
work consistently with the same ensemble
-
experience a complete Long Form
NEXT BLOCK COMING SOON
Same principles. Different ways to train.
CHARACTER FIRST. STORY ALWAYS.
BUILT FROM EXPERIENCE
Built from the event floor.
Not from theory about what might happen.
Insolent Retinue was created by Event Theatre practitioner David Claridge, drawing on around fifteen years of practical experience performing murder mysteries and interactive theatre.
The training is built around the things that actually happen when actors and audiences share the same story.
The question that won't go away.
The clue nobody notices.
The actor who reveals too much.
The Guest who becomes convinced of something completely wrong.
The moment the story goes somewhere nobody expected.
We've been in the room when it happened.
Now we train for it.