Education
Current Workshop Offerings
Writing for Immersive Theater & Experiential Performance
Zoom Workshops w/ Zach Morris
Mondays 2 - 5 pm ET November 25, December 2, 9, 16
$300 for 4 Sessions
ON ZOOM
Creating scripts and scenes for immersive/experiential performance is, in some ways, a fundamentally different endeavor than writing for more traditional stage or screen projects. Explore the questions and considerations that arise when creating coherent, compelling scripted material without a fourth wall.
In this four-part workshop, participants will look at techniques that come into play when script-writing for immersive theater, trying out ways to convey narrative, thematic, and dramatic action while simultaneously creating invitations for audience participation. In a welcoming, warm, and relaxed Zoom atmosphere, Zach will offer insights and perspectives on the week’s topic. Over the four weeks, we’ll investigate practical tools and techniques for the creation of monologue/story-telling scenes and scenarios where a performer is in dialogue with audience members. We will also discuss considerations around crafting individual scenes within the context of longer-form performance experiences and how to create cohesion in works that feature non-sequential or multi-linear action. Each workshop will include in-class and out-of-class writing exercises, and participants will have the option to share their work and receive feedback from classmates if they wish. A performance or writing background is not required, and these gatherings are open to anyone who wishes to work, play, and/or learn more about writing practices.
NOTE: This is a four-part series that will build cumulatively and participants will sign-up for the full series (all four dates) to participate.
Subsidized rates for those experiencing financial hardship: $200
Enter code WITEP at checkout
For those who would like to contribute to making more or deeper subsidies available, there is an option to donate at checkout. All donations received on workshops tickets will go toward underwriting additional subsidy and scholarship opportunities.
Zoom sessions are each 3 hours long
For any questions about this workshop please reach out to boxoffice@thirdrailprojects.com
Experience, Observation, Imagination
A Creative Practices Workshop Series on ZOOM
w/ Tom Pearson
Saturdays 2:00 - 4:30pm ET
March 1, 8, 15, 22, 2025
(1.5 hour presentations followed by 1 hour work/discussion time)
$300 for 4 Sessions
$80 for Drop-ins
For all creatives, creatively blocked, or those seeking a deeper/more consistent creative practice, these hour and a half sessions will set us in motion. The three keys to maximum creativity reside in our ability to work with our own experiences, be keen observers of the world around us (and the worlds inside of us), and to engage our imaginations to describe further possibilities. This course will provide tools for doing all three, and while creativity can seem reliant on inspiration, that’s only half the equation. We have to clear the way and be ready and practiced to make good use of it. With a mix of in-class instruction, prompts, and assignments, as well out-of-class assignments, each session builds on the previous session to encourage us through a month of inspired activation.
March 1 – Tools of Creativity
We will introduce the series with an array of tools and techniques to unstick/kickstart our creative practice. We’ll explore tried and true, original, and a few more widely used techniques that we can rely on to keep us in a state of enabled inspiration. This sets us on course with techniques we will use throughout.
March 8 – Preparation & Clearing the Way
This session dives deeper into psychological creative practices that can be both tools for generating ideas as well as methods for clearing the way to creativity. We’ll explore exercises that help us focus on our own stories and concerns, to unpack and work with them, and to continually inspect and keep the creative flow free and uncluttered.
March 15 – Transcendental Practices
This session focuses on tapping into our own deep wellsprings of original ideas, thoughts, and images. We’ll explore different types of meditative practices that dial us into our unconscious processes and bring them into conscious practice. Dreams, trance, meditation, active imagining, and more will be discussed.
March 22 - Endless Poetry
This session is a culmination of our time together and a chance to dive deeper into certain aspects of our generative processes. If the previous session were about clearing the way, tapping in, and collecting ideas, this session is really about putting them into motion and how to have a self-sustaining, replenishing, and consistent creative life.
*NOTE: The course is solely devoted to creative practices. This is not an immersive theater workshop, though immersive theater will be a reference point along with music, poetry, dance, art, film, and much more.
Educational Offerings
Workshops | Lecture Presentations | Residencies
Our education program reflects twenty years of experience as storytellers and crafters of audiences experiences across many platforms. Designed to welcome artists and creatives from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and communities, our
TRP Immersive Performance Workshop
educational offerings are available both privately and to the public through various organizational partnerships. We cultivate positive environments where collaboration, inquiry, and experimentation are integral to the learning process.
Creative Process Intensive at Gibney Dance
Chinook Festival
Private Offerings
We offer private workshops and lecture presentations for arts organizations, academic institutions, and companies representing a wide variety of industries. These customized engagements are tailored to meet the specific interests of each unique group and range from half or full-day workshops to multi day intensives.
Control Group Productions, Denver
Future of Storytelling Workshop, NYC
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Our private engagements are currently being offered remotely through Zoom and are available nationally and internationally on mutually agreed upon dates, times and intervals.
Connect with us at edu@thirdrailprojects.com to schedule an offering for your group.
Chaney High School, Ohio
Lincoln Center Young Patrons NYC
Devised Work Panel, Denver
Materials for the Arts, NYC
MindPark 2018, Shenzhen
Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation
Academic & Partner Residencies
For a comprehensive Third Rail educational experience, we offer residencies that take place over a span of weeks or months and culminate in a performance project. Residency participants are encouraged to bring their unique voices and perspectives into a collaborative creative process, experiencing this approach to art-making first-hand as an integral aspect of Third Rail Projects’ work. Our residencies are
Past Residency Projects
Olin College of Engineering
Texas A&M University
customized for each institution and may take place in one concentrated time frame or be spread over several intensive periods. Final projects range in scope from informal class showings to fully realized productions.
To discuss a creative residency with Third Rail Projects, connect with us at edu@thirdrailprojects.com
Wesleyan University
Florida State University
Princeton University
Albany Park Theater Project
