Devising Drama with The Paper Birds

On Tuesday, A Level Drama pupils from the Lower and Upper Sixth Forms were treated to a workshop by Camila from the renowned theatre company, The Paper Birds.

The Paper Birds are a devising theatre company, nationally recognised as leaders in their field. They make social and political commentaries through physical and verbatim theatre. They are also our prescribed practitioner for the A Level course and so it was fantastic for the pupils to get first-hand experience of their methodology.

The workshop looked at how to create and develop verbatim theatre, taking into account the company’s five key ingredients: Verbatim, Character and Narrative, Movement, Motif and Exposing the Method. The pupils were taken through a series of exercises which had them performing as each other, creating human obstacle courses and experimenting with sound collages! They learned a lot and are now enthused and ready to devise their own pieces of theatre in the style of The Paper Birds!