This brand new 2-day workshop with Holly Stoppit and Tess Cartwright invites you to explore grief through comedy.

“Hmm, grief and comedy, unlikely bedfellows,” you might think, but wait, read on to find out what we’ve discovered...

We are Holly Stoppit, dramatherapist, performance research facilitator and comedy teacher, and Tess Cartwright, performer and artistic director of Modest Genius Theatre Company. 

Last year, Holly facilitated Tess and her company through an intense period of R&D to create ‘Dying To Please You,’ a comedy show about death and dying based on Tess’s real life experiences of losing her partner to brain cancer. Comedy helped them both to cope and has continued to play a huge part in Tess’s grief journey.

The show is being further developed under the direction of John Wright and will be performed in Bristol April 27-30 at Jacobs Wells Baths, 8pm. More details here.

Holly has known grief a-plenty and is thrilled to use her dramatherapy skills to offer a safe space for people to be with their grief in gentle, creative and surprising ways. In both of our experiences, laughter has not negated grief, but has allowed us respite and perspective which has ultimately helped us to touch in deeper with our grief. We’d like to share some of the structures we’ve discovered with you, to find out what you make of them.

This workshop will be a carefully-led group journey through resilience, sharing, play, laughter and tears. There are only 8 places available to make sure every participant gets maximum support. There is an application process to make sure we’ve got a good mix of people in the room. If there are loads of applications, we’ll consider running the workshop again in the future.

Workshop details

Dates: Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th June 2017
Times: 10-5.30 both days
Venue: Central Bristol TBC
Cost: £150 / £120 / £90
£150 is the sponsor rate for those earning enough money to fund another participant to attend a Holly Stoppit workshop at a supported rate.
£120 is the standard rate.
£90 is the concession rate for those on benefits or in full time education. There are limited concessionary places available.