Our Workshops

Whether it's poetry, hip-hop, personal essays, or fantastic stories, our workshops challenge young storytellers to think differently about writing and the spoken word. Workshops are led by an incredible cadre of writers and artists who divulge the secrets of their trades. The kind of workshop offered decides its length of time and duration. A workshop may be held on one full afternoon on a weekend day, or it may happen over a span of time, like a series of four afternoons after school.

Elementary and middle school workshops have included Flowers, Clementines, and a Duck: Painting a Picture with Words; The Grok, the Sneasal, and Frank: An Encyclopedia of Imaginary Animals; HELLO, Wharf Kitties!; and Who Cares about Harry Potter. High school workshops have included City Poetry: Legal Graffiti; College Essay; Shoot This! Creating a Screenplay; and The World According to Me.

No matter the subject or genre of writing covered, our workshops are always fun, even uproariously so, like when Patty pulls out her drums or Gibson gets called into reciting "We Real Cool." They're also always productive. We like to send our writers out the door with their craft, whether a college essay or a notebook full of new song lyrics or a bound book. Scroll down below to see some of the fantastic videos made by workshop participants.

CURRENT WORKSHOPS:

Moss, Bark, and Twigs: Tiny Houses, Big Stories
Workshop Leaders: Telling Room Staff & Volunteers
Grades 2-5
Wednesdays, October 13th, 20th and 27th, November 3rd 3:30-5:30 pm

Don't you want to know more about the secret lives of the fairies who live in the beautiful forest village on Mackworth Island? Come create those secrets with us! We'll go exploring down the island path until we discover the fairy village there, and then design our own houses, photograph and map them, take great sensory notes, and head on back to the magical creative space known as The Telling Room to write, draw, and imagine. This workshop ends with a second trip to Mackworth to make a fairy ring around the village. In our story circle we'll share in the secrets uncovered in our stories. This one's got it all: exploration, magic, secrets, writing, photography, drawing, and lots of outdoor play. Sign up soon!

Game On: Envisioning Your Own Video Game
Workshop Leaders: Gibson Fay-LeBlanc from The Telling Room and
Justin Hoenke from the Portland Public Library
Grades 6-12
Tuesdays, 3:00-4:30 at the Portland Public Library, Meeting Room #3 (Lower Level)
October 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th, November 2nd and 9th

Ever had an idea for a new video game? In this workshop, we’ll look at what the best games have in common and then brainstorm, storyboard, and create concepts for new ones. Who’ll be the star of your game? What will your world look like? We’ll hunt for words and images-- the possibilities are endless.

Imprint and Print, Press and Impress: A Bookmaking Workshop
Workshop leader: Peter Madden
Ages 8-18
Mondays, October 18th, 25th, and November 1st, 3:30-5:30 pm

This workshop explores the creation of one-of-a-kind artists books. Students play with the concept of book forms, express their own artistic style, and imagine how journaling possibilities meld into the book format. They play with words, come up with images, and then get to use a wide variety of usual and unusual materials while learning printmaking and bookmaking techniques, including the spiral, hanging accordion book form, and a nontoxic gelatin printing method first developed at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Prior bookmaking experience is not necessary. Bookmaking students have the option of lending their finished work out as part of a working installation of art to be exhibited throughout greater Portland.

Peter Madden teaches book arts and alternative photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Massachusetts College of Art. He leads workshops at The Guild of Bookworkers, Massachusetts College of Art, Bennington College, The Center for Book Arts in New York City, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Peter studied at Pratt Institute, Parson's School of Design, and Massachusetts College of Art. His work is exhibited at and collected by Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Harvard's Houghton Library, and the Center for Book Arts in New York City. Peter is the recipient of an Artists' Foundation Fellowship, a Saint Botolph Foundation Grant, and most recently, a Massachusetts Cultural Council award.

If You Build It, They Will Come: A Fort-Building Workshop
Workshop Leaders: Telling Room Staff & Volunteers
Grades 2-4
Saturday, October 23rd, 9-12 pm

What’s the coolest homemade fort you’ve ever built? Did you ever think about what sort of creature might live in such a place? In this workshop, we’ll use whatever’s at hand at The Telling Room to sketch and build forts, photograph them before they fall down, and create stories about the characters who might live in them.

Theatrical Lightning: The 10-Minute Playwriting Workshop
Workshop leader: Gretchen Berg
Grades 9 -12
Mondays, 3:00-5:00 pm
November 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, & 29th
New Play Staged Reading Marathon: Monday, December 6th, 3:00-5:00pm

A popular anthology of ten-minute plays describes the genre this way: “A ten-minute play is a streak of theatrical lightning. It doesn't last long, but its power can stand your hair on end.” In this workshop, students create action packed ten-minute plays through improvisational writing and performance experiments, eavesdropping, brainstorming, and performing each other’s scripts. During the workshop, Portland Stage Company sends in actors to perform works-in-progress. The workshop culminates in a marathon of staged readings of new plays on December 6.

Gretchen Berg has taught playwriting at Bowdoin College & Bates College and is currently the Community Outreach Coordinator at Portland Ovations. She received the Maine Alliance for Art Education’s 2007 Bill Bonyun Award for her contribution to the arts in Maine schools.

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Workshop Mini-Films

Students in our Stop Time Animation workshop created these video shorts using legos, egg cartons, felt scraps, modeling clay and figurines brought from home.

In another exciting Telling Room workshop, students brought new life and color to the familiar children's classic, Where the Wild Things Are, by adding unexpected twists, turns, and surprises. They then created an original shadow puppet play to tell their revised version of the story. The workshop culminated with a performance for friends and family at The Telling Room. Check out the video below!

Our Workshops

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