ABSTRACT
One of the more remarkable features of theatre training over the last twenty-five years has been the growth of workshops. There is no single reason why this should be, although we can point to a number of factors which have contributed. There is no single pattern to the workshops although we can identify loose parameters. What holds together workshop and gives some sense of homogeneity is the drive to find some supportive, compatible and noncompetitive framework in which individuals can explore or extend the range of their theatre skills or means of expression. The group is important and initially very risky. A group of totally unrelated individuals sign to take part in a short period of intense work. Anyone who leads workshops knows that the first priority lies in establishing some manner of group cohesion and trust, which will enable the lowering of defences and the engendering of respect. In saying this, we could posit one point of origin and influence as the encounter groups of the 1960s, of which Essalen was the prime model. The alternative theatre movement of the 60s and 70s inherited and imbibed the sense and practice of breaking down barriers to freedom of expression, communication, and interaction. The best workshops of today still function as time out of time, islands separate from the mainstream of life. Those of us who regularly lead workshops experience a short period in which intense and revealing relationships are built up, which cannot be sustained. We are privileged to inhabit in this time the lives of other people, to know them and to let them go. It would not be too much to say that there is often a great deal of love experienced and exchanged.
