Actually, there are two parts to this section: one is storytelling, and one is bookwriting. These sessions can include aspects of both, or focus on only one of them.
Storytelling is one of the oldest artforms in the world. In fact, it could be said that every artform is a storytelling one, because art does exactly that: conjures up a story in the imagination of the audience.
We're all storytellers. The person who tells their partner how their day went is telling a story. The friends who are catching up on gossip are telling stories. Actually, they're sharing stories, because one story tends to prompt a story in response, which sparks another. On and on, in the never-ending stream of stories that carries us through life.
Stories are alive, and they need us in order to live. Although a story changes every time it's told by someone new, the essence of storytelling remains the same: it is an essential part of human society, being the craft with which we shape all of our relationships, no matter how fleeting.
A glance at a stranger is enough to sketch out a basic story about who they are and how they might fit into our lives. As we get to know them, that story will change, but the value we put on the existence of a story never diminishes.
Storytelling sessions begin with an examination of the storyteller, for they are the vessel in which the story is carried, and through which it is poured out to others. So we begin by finding out what kind of storytelling vessel each participant might be, and therefore what kind of stories they might be drawn to tell.
Once this is established, the structure of stories is examined. There are storytelling traditions that have existed since time began, not because one must have rules to which to adhere, but because the nature of stories naturally leans towards certain forms and devices, in the same way that clay on a pottery wheel will naturally inform the way it wants to be worked.
These inherent story qualities can be learnt, but are better discovered in the room through mutual exploration of the telling of a tale. (Tall or otherwise.)
Once the story has presented itself, the bookwriting part describes and attempts to define the process of scribing a story. The aim is to discover - or rather, to rediscover for ourselves - the finer tools that are used to shape and hone a story into an accurate but ultimately accessible tool with which an audience can collaborate.
At this stage, sessions are tailored either to bookwriting specifically for musical theatre, or to the wider genre of all theatrical presentation using words.
