How can a body become a landscape?
How can a torch transform into a world?
How can everyday objects become the foundation of a theatrical story?
On 19 September 2026, 29 Drama students immersed themselves in a full-day Physical and Devising Theatre Workshop with Red Leap Theatre, exploring how movement, puppetry, objects, light and sound can be combined to create imaginative and powerful performance.
Red Leap is a devising theatre company known for its collaborative, design-led approach to physical storytelling. Through this workshop, two senior Red Leap artists guided students through their creative process, encouraging them to experiment, take risks and discover new ways of creating theatre beyond traditional text-based performance.
A Day of Exploration and Discovery
Throughout the day, students explored four key areas of Red Leap’s practice:
- Stylising Action and Space
Students moved beyond naturalism by exploring scale, perspective, space, pace and physical qualities to create dynamic theatrical images and storytelling.
- Puppetry and Object Manipulation
Students experimented with miniature finger puppetry, object manipulation and world-building, discovering how ordinary materials can become imaginative theatrical elements.
- Handheld Light and Materials
Using handheld lights and simple materials, students explored how transformation, composition and visual storytelling can create atmosphere, images and meaning on stage.
- Physical Approaches to Character
Students developed characters through gesture, movement qualities and physical choices, exploring how characters can be brought from the page into the physical world.
Student Reflections
After the workshop, students reflected on how the experience expanded their understanding of theatre-making.
The activities — using the human body to simulate landscape and creating a tense atmosphere with a torch — helped me realise that drama is not just about conveying most of the plot through spoken lines, but also involves expressing emotions through physical movements and lighting effects. This experience truly broadened my perspective and revealed the many facets of drama.
“It was a physically demanding yet highly inspiring and enriching experience.”
“I felt alive, focused and so happy.”
“The landscape-with-limbs exercise and perspective exercise taught me a new way in which human bodies can interact with the space around them, bringing brand new sparks to my portfolio preparation.”
“Once again, I lived in the theatrical world. Once again, I was devoted in what I love. Once again, I gained knowledge from the experience.”
“We were introduced to a full process of devising, which allowed us to work with aim.”
“Physical theatre enables us to not only express ourselves through words but also with our body.”
“As an actor, I felt very inspired by the workshop and enjoyed it very much.”
“Walking barefoot forced me to stay present. No shoes, no distractions, just me and the floor and everyone else in the room.”
“It taught me how much of acting is just being there.”
“I usually plan everything, so being forced to skip that step was uncomfortable at first, and then strangely freeing.”
“The coolest part was that the flashlight piece got fed back into the chair piece. Nothing gets thrown away. Everything becomes material for the next round.”
“That changed how I think about making things — you’re not trying to get it perfect the first time, you’re just adding to what’s already there.”
“We got the chance to feel our ‘impulses’ and energy, putting the terms that we learnt in class, such as ‘intention’ and ‘mannerism’, into practice.”
“We took part in games that built focus and body control and explored different usages of ordinary objects in life.”
“Watching other’s performances allowed me to absorb creative ideas.”
“This experience was so inspiring that I can use these techniques and methods in my drama studies, especially for G2 Devised Piece.”
“The workshop created a very relaxed atmosphere, which made it easier for us to experiment with movement, physical expression, and different ways of creating characters and scenes without worrying too much about making mistakes.”
“I especially liked how the activities were structured in a clear, step-by-step way, as each exercise helped us build towards a better understanding of the devising process.”
“I learned a lot about the process of devising theatre, while also having a lot of fun and enjoying the experience with everyone.”
“It’s been a fulfilling and creative day of moving around and having fun.”
“The teachers were encouraging and supportive throughout and there was also lots of exclusive industry techniques that they selflessly gave.”
“It inspires me a lot, especially on the different ways I could be devising and the various possibilities that worked better than it sounds.”
“As someone new to theatre, the Red Leap theatre company delivered a workshop that was approachable, engaging, and which allowed everyone to step out of their comfort zones in some way. We learnt skills needed in a performer like concentration and a serious playfulness through games that help us ground ourselves in preparation for performances. We were also introduced to a variety of performance and physical theatre techniques, including puppetry, landscapes, and gestures.
The workshop trained our minds to think creatively and intuitively, focusing more on ‘doing’ rather than ‘brainstorming’ – this was an interesting perspective because the only ‘right way of doing things’ is trying everything out even if it makes no sense at first but later piecing individual ideas into something coherent once ideas have been gathered.”
“Having Red Leap Theatre work with our Drama students was a truly amazing experience. Our students were able to fully immerse themselves in the creative approaches that Red Leap use when devising. Across all levels, the breadth of approaches explored was significant, including puppetry, found objects, movement and scene building. The students responded extremely positively to their visit and the impact that the workshops had on their own theatre-making.”
A Day of Creativity, Collaboration and Possibility.
From walking barefoot and following impulses, to transforming chairs and torches into theatrical material, students experienced devising and physical theatre as a process of exploration, experimentation, collaboration and discovery.
A huge thank you to Red Leap Theatre for sharing your creative practice, expertise and passion with our students. We look forward to seeing how these new approaches continue to influence their future performances.
- Article / Bianca Lin
