Business brings theatre and drama to Toowoomba
IF YOU were a big fan of the show Thank God You’re Here, your chance to try you hand at improvisation is here, as Starlet Creative Industries brings Theatre Sports to Toowoomba.
After battling breast cancer, Marianne Buchanan decided it was time for a sea change, and moved her business from Brisbane to Toowoomba.
On March 21 from 7pm until 9pm, Ms Buchanan will be hosting Theatre Sports at Canvas Coworking.
“Theatre Sports is team -based drama performance where it’s all spontaneous and the people involved don’t know what they’re about to perform. It’s all improvisation,” Ms Buchanan said.
“It’s hilarious and it’s fascinating what people come up with in the moment.
“There will be prizes for the most outrageous and original performance pieces.”
After touring Australia and New Zealand with a drama group in her late teens, Ms Buchanan studied primary teaching and sociology, and has also taken Lifeline counselling courses.
“What I’ve developed with my business is a combination of my teaching, my counselling, my sociology to be really well rounded,” Ms Buchanan said.
“It’s not just drama but it’s building confidence,” Ms Buchanan said.
As part of her business, Starlet Creative Industries also travels to schools to run an interactive wellbeing workshop for students called Puppets with Purpose.
“(Students) learn basic counselling techniques along with puppet techniques,” Ms Buchanan said.
“They’ll watch a puppet show about bullying or peer pressure and they’ll see a counsellor-type puppet work with a puppet that is going through something difficult.
“By the puppet being able to talk about it, the puppet comes to a realisation or an awareness of what they’ve been through.”
Ms Buchanan said she then passed the puppets to students who worked in pairs.
“One puppet is the listener and the other puppet has a story, and the listener puppet uses those basic counselling techniques to help the other puppet talk about what it’s going through.
“Then we learn about how they can apply those techniques to be better listeners to their friends.”
Tickets for Theatre Sports are $20, and the event is BYO drinks. For more information, visit www.starletcreativeindustries.com.