Theatre at work

Experiential Theatre Based Learning

Theatre is at work enhancing culture and improving performance

We create impact, providing a learning experience that will engage your people. We work with you to deliver inspiring tailored workshops in safety, leadership and a range of cultural subjects.

Our programmes feature interactive methods such as scripted plays, case-studies and live simulations. We also apply our skills to films, videos and online programmes for powerful communication and learning. Everything we do is designed with your groups in mind, from leaders and managers through to frontline and operational teams.

We have over two decades of experience in applying our creative, theatre-based techniques to real organisational challenges. Our approach engages people rationally, emotionally and behaviourally so they understand, they care, and they see their part. We then harness that momentum by empowering participants with the practical skills needed to ensure they apply the learning to their roles.

Our team have backgrounds in industry, the arts, psychology, and learning and development. Our skills range from workshop design to stage direction, from facilitation to performance. Theatre works and we can make it work for you.

Theatre Based Techniques

Interactive Plays

Theatre is a powerful medium by which to create awareness and enable understanding. We produce and perform dramatisations which are used as a core element in training programmes or events. Developed and delivered by our team, our approach appeals to all learning styles creating maximum impact and engagement. Each play is interactive so participants can engage directly with the characters and explore events as they unfold through facilitated group discussion. You can choose from our range of existing plays or we can develop a new bespoke piece for you. Theatre at work can overcome a key challenge in changing behaviour and culture; it generates ownership by challenging thinking and shifting mindsets.

Scripted Scenarios

Case-studies are designed to illustrate or mirror your organisational culture, giving participants valuable insights into workplace behaviour, including their own. These scripted scenarios are researched and developed in consultation with you and tailored to address specific objectives or as part of an existing programme. We use an interactive process to involve each group in the scenario through active observation, reflection, strategy development and experimentation. Through practical exploration of key themes, we enable understanding and ownership by illustrating how even the smallest actions, or inaction, can have the greatest impact at work.

Skills Practice

Our workshops present the perfect opportunity to apply learning in a practical way. We employ theory and tools to ground our theatre-based methods and consolidate learning for participants. The use of actors for skills practice is a tried and tested method which can be used in a wide variety of situations, particularly where behaviours or competencies are being enhanced. Our approach to this method is that our actors play the roles so that participants need only be themselves. Individual skills development is enabled through this opportunity to practice and receive expert feedback and coaching from our facilitators.

Areas of Expertise

Safety Culture

Improve and sustain the culture of safety in your organisation.

Performance Management

Create a high-performing culture led by your senior teams.

Effective Workplaces

Foster a productive and inclusive workplace for all.

Digital Techniques

Film and Video

We script and produce bespoke films or video inserts for training programmes or communication platforms. Our skills and experience means we create films which are fresh and memorable tools for sharing key messages or implementing cultural change. Our dramatisations are filmed in studio or on location using broadcast standard equipment. We work with you to create unique, bespoke segments which reflect the culture of your organisation or industry. Our films have been used in sectors including construction, energy, rail and finance.

Online Programmes

Film clips and streamed performances are used as the basis of interactive online training which we facilitate. The live nature of our theatre techniques is replicated online so these programmes can offer an engaging and cost-effective alternative for remote workers. Styled in a similar way to our theatre-based plays, our online training presents scenarios and viewpoints in order to explore key attitudes, approaches or skills. Input and discussion from participants are encouraged along with application of learning to roles.

Featured Programmes

Runaway

In 2008 a runaway chemical reaction occurred at a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Cork. Debris from the explosion was found 150 metres away in what the Health and Safety Authority described as the worst accident in the history of the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland. Two operators were severely injured, one of whom subsequently lost their life.

Our hard-hitting dramatised workshop explores the importance of vigilance in a busy manufacturing environment and the inherent risk in believing you are safe. How safe is your industry?

Themes

Duty of Care | Responsibility | Chronic Unease | Process Safety

Suitable For

Management & Operative Levels

A Way With Words

How can each person influence safety culture? This workshop highlights the importance of safety conversations as a day-to-day dynamic within your organisation. We explore the attitudes and approaches that will enable culture change, one safety conversation at a time.

Set in a busy packaging and distribution environment within a manufacturing facility, our interactive story uses a process of forum theatre to raise awareness and stimulate discussion. The qualities of an effective safety conversation are highlighted, along with the potential consequences of getting it wrong. The scenario also refers to the psychology of safety and we explore perceptions and biases from both sides of the conversation.

Each workshop can be designed to suit your groups at management or operative levels and content includes contemporary cultural references.

Themes

Safety Coversations | Risk Perception | Intervention | Culture

Suitable For

Groups at all levels of management and operative

Stay With Me

What would you anticipate on your first day at work? That you will get home safely? Our case study is based on the true and tragic story of a young man who lost his life within hours of starting a new job. How could such a terrible event happen and shouldn’t any risks to his safety have been anticipated?

The Irish Court held the company accountable for failings in information, instruction, supervision and safety systems. The Judge said he was ‘satisfied the case was not one where the company had shown a deliberate disregard of health and safety to maximise profits but had been a one-off tragic and unfortunate accident arising from a naive attempt at completing a difficult task’. We give participants the opportunity to be jury and judge for themselves.

Statistics tell us that almost half of work-related deaths in Ireland involve vehicles with common issues including proximity and loss of control. This story highlights the risks around moving vehicles, plant and machinery and the potential consequences of failing to take safety seriously.

Themes

Complacency | Culture | Accountability | Plant & Vehicles

Suitable For

Groups at all levels of management and operative

Overloaded

Inspired by an Irish incident our case-study explores how failings in judgement, and failure to uphold a safe system of work, can lead to a workplace fatality. We meet an operative Brendan and his manager Kevin, both of whom are hard-working and well-intentioned. Yet through their actions, and inaction, play key roles in events that lead to the incident and disastrous consequences for their colleague.

Through live interaction and facilitated discussion we explore how factors line up, behaviours merge and signals are missed leading to tragic consequences for a hard-working family man whose ‘death has cast
a shadow over the company forever’.

Themes

Ownership of Safety | Risk Awareness | Workplace Stress | Culture

Suitable For

Operatives, Supervisors and Managers in any industry

Fallout

Based on an incident that happened in Ireland, this story explores some of the human factors that can influence a culture of safety on site. Through live interaction and facilitated discussion we focus on attitudes, choices and the influence of planning and contractor dynamics on risk awareness and safe practices. Used in a workshop setting this scenario also allows participants to examine their own role in influencing a culture of safety through effective safety conversations.

Themes

Working at Height | Responsibility | Safety Conversations | Culture

Suitable For

Operatives and Supervisors in Construction, Engineering or any Industry

The Bridge

This programme gives you greater understanding of an often challenging issue: workplace bullying. Designed to stimulate individual awareness at all levels, the workshop will support organisations in dealing with bullying effectively. Through facilitated discussion and live interaction this session brings psychology to life in a three-dimensional way and will challenge your thinking; exploring the human factors and biases often at play. We meet Alan and Michael who are experiencing difficulties at work; each of whom have a very different perspective.

Themes

Workplace bullying | Assumptions and bias | Culture | Psychosocial risks and responsibility

Suitable For

Suitable for operational and office teams at all levels in any industry.

DOWNLOAD NEW PROGRAMME LISTINGS HERE

I personally found this webinar very interesting and thought provoking - the aim of the programme is for us all to realise that during this Covid pandemic – we are all dealing with the stresses and strains very differently

Ervia have recently developed an overall Safety, Health and Wellbeing strategy under the brand 'Work Safe Home Safe'. We recently ran launch sessions for all staff which incorporated an interactive workshop ('the Mousehole') run by Annette and her team. We wanted to focus on the themes of leadership, personal responsibility, culture, risk taking and intervention and the workshops were a great success with unprecedented levels of staff participation and engagement. Feedback from participants after the event was overwhelmingly positive. The approach taken by Annette and the team was professional, engaging and refreshing.

I have worked with Annette on delivering theatre-based training for our CIF members. It was very well received and the feedback on the learning outcomes was fantastic. Annette provides a very professional service and her team really make the audience feel they are on the scene, making the whole learning that more real. I would have no difficulty in recommending Annette and her team in delivering her professional services to the safety community.

Annette has partnered on several occasions with GSK to provide innovative communication skills training to our customer facing employees. Her creative and unique approach ensures full engagement from all participants and the training interventions were very successful and memorable.

In the past 4 years we have developed a fantastic partnership with Theatre at Work to help drive employee safety awareness. Annette’s and her team’s creativity, professionalism, dedication and passion have played an instrumental role in guiding us towards a more caring and inclusive safety and welfare culture

Annette worked with us to produce a video showing what infrastructure does in an investment bank. Her creativity contributed to make what might appear to be a rather dull subject into something which is exciting and a good reflection of the importance of the role within the bank. The finished product received plaudits from all who viewed it, whatever their background.

Theatre at work

Experiential Theatre Based Learning

Theatre is at work enhancing culture and improving performance

Theatre Based Techniques

Interactive Plays

Scripted Scenarios

Skills Practice

Areas of Expertise

Digital Techniques

Featured Programmes

Themes

Duty of Care | Responsibility | Chronic Unease | Process Safety

Suitable For

Management & Operative Levels

Themes

Safety Coversations | Risk Perception | Intervention | Culture

Suitable For

Groups at all levels of management and operative

Themes

Complacency | Culture | Accountability | Plant & Vehicles

Suitable For

Groups at all levels of management and operative

Themes

Ownership of Safety | Risk Awareness | Workplace Stress | Culture

Suitable For

Operatives, Supervisors and Managers in any industry

Themes

Working at Height | Responsibility | Safety Conversations | Culture

Suitable For

Operatives and Supervisors in Construction, Engineering or any Industry

Themes

Workplace bullying | Assumptions and bias | Culture | Psychosocial risks and responsibility

Suitable For

Suitable for operational and office teams at all levels in any industry.

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