Workshop

The term workshop, with its traditional meaning as a place where construction and repair work are done, has been adopted and used metaphorically in a range of ways in theatre and performance since the 20th century.

The concept

Related to the concepts of Experimental theatre and Laboratory theatre, though perhaps with less of the accent on "scientific research processes" implied by experimental and laboratory, workshop theatre refers to the process of creating a performance by experimentation and improvisation.

The basic term workshop can be used as a verb ("to workshop a play"), a noun ("a theatre workshop"), or adjectivally ("a workshopped text"; "a workshop production")

Related concepts are improvise, improvisational theatre and playmaking.

The concept of workshop theatre

The term workshop theatre specifically emphasises the notion of creating or shaping a theatre text through a workshop process, i.e. by having the actors and director create or adapt a play through a improvisation processes (hence the term workshopping) a text/scene/play, and can refer to both the process itself as well as the venue where/by which such processes are employed (i.e. a temporary or permanent venue/company/facility to facilitate such work).

As an adjective ("a workshop production")

adjectivally (“a workshop production” or workshopped production, )

As a noun (

Used to refer to a company (e.g Theatre Workshop '71), or venue (e.g. The Workshop, Cape Town) where workshop processes (play development, experimentation and improvisation) take place.

A theatre workshop thus most often refers to a temporary or permanent venue/company/facility to facilitate such work. ****

As a verb:

The concept as it evolved in South Africa

The concept was introduced into the South African scene via the British and American avant garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s, but became really prominent as an alternative creative form in the 1970-1980 struggle period among writers and theatremakers in English, gradually becoming the dominant form of play creation for political work especially, for a while almost ousting the traditional playwright as dominant creative figure in the local industry. This situation continued after the politcal shift in the country in 1994, theatremakers working in all the South African languages having adopted it as a valuable creative tool.

Prominent examples of companies and venues using the term in their names are:

The Workshop in Cape Town

Organisation of South African Artists (OOSAA), initiated The Workshop: a series of artmaking activities and events during the course of 1976 in the space in Mowbray that would subsequently become the Community Arts Project (CAP).

Return to

Return to South African Theatre Terminology and Thematic Entries

Return to South African Theatre Venues, Companies, Societies, etc

Return to The ESAT Entries

Return to Main Page