Theatre-making Workshops
Learn from experienced artists, develop new creative skills and discover new approaches to making theatre.
Whether you're creating your first solo show or refining your practice, these hands-on workshops offer practical tools, creative inspiration and a supportive space to explore, experiment and take risks.
Theatre-making from the heART
Presented and facilitated by Dave Houston
A supportive, body-based workshop for artists creating solo or small ensemble shows. Using games, improvisation, movement, personal reflection and Gestalt approaches, participants explore feeling, memory, myth, fairy tale and archetype to generate theatrical material that connects personal experience to universal human themes.
About Dave
Dave Houston is an Australian actor, musician, writer and theatre-maker who has been creating and touring original theatre for more than 30 years. Trained at the Victorian College of the Arts, he is the Artistic Director of Full-On Theatre and has performed across theatres, festivals, schools and community settings throughout Australia and internationally, first taking a solo show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival at the age of 24.
Blending storytelling, live music, comedy and community engagement, Dave is passionate about solo performance that is emotionally honest, funny and deeply human. His work is shaped by a lifelong interest in theatre, wellbeing and human connection, and he is currently completing a Master's in Gestalt Therapy to further inform his directing and teaching practice. A committed ally for First Nations peoples, Dave has also worked extensively as an artist-in-residence with Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital and has released two solo albums alongside six albums with his bands.
12 September 2026 - 1-3pm
BATS Theatre - Studio
Songwriting for performance
Presented and facilitated by Lucy Heffernan
Ever wanted to write a song but didn’t know where to start? From finding inspiration to playing with genre and form, this workshop will give you the tools to write your own lyrics and find your (or your character’s) voice.
About Lucy
Lucy Heffernan is a writer, performer and theatre maker. A skilled songwriter, she inserts original music into all her performances.
Lucy trained a the University of Wollongong and studied a Bachelor of Performance, a Bachelor of Creative Arts Honours (First Class), and is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Practice at the University of New South Wales funded by a Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. After seeing Fleabag in 2018 at Carriageworks, Lucy was bitten by the solo performance bug.
Lucy is currently working on her next solo show as part of her PhD candidature at UNSW, where she continues her exploration of how music and theatre intersect in form of 'gig theatre'.
19 September 2026 - 1-3pm
BATS Theatre - Studio