An exciting youth-led training scheme run providing training in drama workshop facilitation for young people aged 11-18.

The idea for Workshop Leaders of the Future came from young people from Toonspeak’s Members Forum who wanted the chance to take part in Toonspeak’s volunteer training programme for adults, but couldn’t because they were too young.  Such was their determination to create a similar scheme for young people, they even raised the money to allow the project to go ahead.

Participants are taught about leadership skills, communication, how to structure a workshop and how to explain and teach drama games to others and are then challenged to plan and run their own drama workshop at the end of the training. 

 This initial training is followed by a number of mentored workshop sessions with local community groups of all ages and abilities.

Thanks to support from the Gannochy Trust, Workshop Leaders of the Future has now become a core part of our activity.

Larger scale performance opportunities for young people who are ready for the next challenge.  From 2005 onwards, all of Toonspeak’s performances have been devised, which reduces barriers to participation such as literacy issues, and increases the artistic input participants have. While the emphasis has been on imagination, creativity and escapism, latterly Toonspeak has been funded to create more issue-based performances, and has worked with several partners to produce a variety of devised performances. See our productions page for more details.