FREE Pop-Up Workshop: with Kirsty Housley
This free workshop is open to writers aged 18+ who live in or have a strong connection to the East Midlands, as part of the Pop-Up Plays commission callout.
Are you ready to write your own Pop-Up Play, creating new theatre that sparks unexpected connections? Do you have an idea but aren’t sure where to start? Or do you want to explore new ideas inspired by the 2025 theme: connection?
This hands-on workshop will offer you tools for creating portable, playful theatre, and challenge you to think about theatre and the spaces it can happen. Through practical exercises and imaginative leaps, you’ll grow skills in:
✅ Writing compelling short plays for pop-up performances
✅ Adapting ideas to unique spaces and unconventional settings
✅ Working with limited resources to create maximum impact
✅ Engaging audiences in immersive and spontaneous ways
✅ Plus, key information on Pop-Up Plays and how to apply
This free workshop is open to writers aged 18+ who live in or have a strong connection to the East Midlands, as part of the Pop-Up Plays commission callout.
Date
Saturday 29 March 2025
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Online via Zoom
(up to 30 spaces available)
Kirsty Housley
Photo Credit: Stephen Daly
Kirsty Housley is a director, dramaturg and writer who specialises in formally bold new work and collaboration.
Recent work includes: RISE: Opening Ceremony for Bradford City of Culture 2025; ECHO (Royal Court/LIFT as Dramaturg); Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead (Co Director, Complicité, 2022/23); Jekyll & Hyde (National Theatre tour, 2024 and 2022); Horse (Co-Director of Live show with Imogen Knight for Matthew Herbert, Edinburgh International Festival and Barbican); Hope (Director of Short Film for Clean Break), Extinct (Theatre Royal Stratford East, 2021); The Long Goodbye Livestream (Riz Ahmed/MIF/BAM, 2020), Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran (Traverse Theatre, Sundance Film Festival and Under The Radar fest NYC); Mephisto (A Rhapsodie) (Gate Theatre, 2019); Tao of Glass (Manchester International Festival and Royal Exchange Theatre, 2019); Avalanche (Barbican Theatre, as dramaturg); I’m A Phoenix, Bitch (Battersea Arts Centre, 2018); Myth (writer and director, RSC) and The Encounter (Complicité, Edinburgh International Festival, Warwick Arts Centre, Theatre Vidy, Bristol Old Vic, UK Tour, Broadway, 2015/16/17/18).
Kirsty was the recipient of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for Cue Deadly, a Live Film Project, the Title Pending award for innovation at Northern Stage, and The Stage award for Innovation for The Encounter. Kirsty was an RSC digital fellow in 2022 and is currently under commission to the Royal Opera House, National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
