The Improbable Summer School:

Our Work / Your Work

Monday 7th - Friday 18th August

In August 2023, Improbable hosted, for the first time ever, a residential summer school at our new home-to-be, the beautiful Bore Place, in the North Kent Downs.

Improbable’s Summer School is a residential programme focusing on your creativity, your spirit, your leadership, and your voice. Our unique approach will immerse you in Improbable’s acclaimed practice, enabling you to take a pause from the day to day, while we hold space for you and what might emerge. 

Over the last 30 years, Improbable has grown into a theatre company which defies categorisation. Our work ranges from Olivier-award winning operas like Akhnaten, to large-scale outdoor spectacles witnessed by 20,000 people, to acclaimed adaptations like My Neighbour Totoro. We’ve made celebrated theatre on all scales from rooms above pubs to the National Theatre and around the world, from Syria to Australia to Broadway. But we don’t just make shows, we work with business, charities, councils and across the cultural sector to hold space for people to have the time they need to make positive change. We lead and support skills development programmes for artists. We take our processes into conflict resolution and research, we lead an international network of M/Others Who Make.

At the heart of our practice is improvisation which binds together all of our work. Whether on stage, in someone else’s workplace or our own, the practice and philosophy of improvisation is at the core of our creative process. By 'improvisation' we mean any emergent or iterative process that seeks to bring awareness to each unfolding moment and an understanding that positive change comes not from one person, group, or ideology but will grow from the symbiotic interactions between us. 

This inaugural Summer Academy was for everyone – anyone who has an idea, a spark, a need to lead, to dream. People who work in the cultural sector, in finance, who are building a wind farm, looking to set up a new organisation or have a nagging question or idea you want to develop in your own work or life. The summer school was a place to explore, to learn, to create, and for us, together, to see what emerges for you…

Below you will find details on each week of the programme. Some participants did one week and some came for the whole two week ride:

Credit: Mika Rosenfeld

  • Monday 7 – Friday 11 August 2023

    It is often hard to convince people that it’s the same work that underpins My Neighbour Totoro, Lifegame, Satyagraha, Devoted and Disgruntled, and everything else we have done over the last thirty years – from the biggest operas to the most experimental of fringe impro gigs. But it is. It’s exactly the same.

    This is an invitation to spend a week with our work, immersed in our Improbable world and from that place to look at the nature of leadership. There will be exercises drawn from the many diverse fields that inform our practice – Keith Johnstone, Viola Spolin (improvisation) Arny and Amy Mindell (Process-Orientated Psychology) Harrison Owen (Open Space Technology), Michael Chekhov (acting) and others. But this week will be more than a collection of exercises. It’s not a recipe book. It’s about how to hold space, and to hold it open, so that, with luck, it arrives. It. The thing you cannot make appear, but that renders everything worthwhile when it does. We believe that ‘it’ is relevant to all manner of different professions – to performing and directing, yes, but also to writing, to founding a business, to leading a company, to pulling off an astonishing event, to mountaineering (probably), and well, just… life.

  • Monday 14 – Friday 18 August 2023

    Do you have a project about which you feel passionate?

    It could be:

    A show

    A book

    A business

    A conference

    A training programme

    A question that won’t go away

    It could be you – YOU could be the project.

    It can be something you are leading, wanting to teach, learn, enable, or explore. And it can be at any stage, from the hunch of an idea, to a fully-fledged plan.

    This week is an invitation to work on whatever you hold most dear, to bring our work – our Improbable practices, principles, creative tools – to yours, to see how we might best support you and your vision. We will invite you to share your ideas with the group, and will work on each project collectively, as well as making space for individual mentoring, peer to peer support, and for connections and collaborations to unfold. Be prepared to be surprised, inspired, and quite (Im)probably transformed.

  • The schedule for each week will look roughly as follows (note some of the specifics around workshop timings and evening plans will change closer to the time but this gives you a good idea of what to expect):

    Monday

    11am
    Pick up from Sevenoaks station for those travelling by train

    11.30am
    Participant arrival and check in

    12.30pm
    Welcome lunch

    2pm – 5.30pm
    Workshop sessions

    7pm
    Communal evening meal

    8pm-10pm
    Discussion / facilitated session

    Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday

    8am – 10am
    Breakfast served in the Old Stables

    10am – 1pm
    Workshop sessions

    1pm – 2pm
    Lunch served

    2pm – 5.30pm
    Workshop sessions

    7pm
    Communal evening meal

    8pm-10pm
    Discussion / facilitated session / sharing

    Friday

    8am – 9.30am
    Breakfast served in the Old Stables

    9am – 10am
    Closing Circle – a moment of reflection on your week as a group in the Old Stables

    10am
    Check out, transport to Sevenoaks station for those travelling by train

    Each week will include:

    • 3.5 days of intensive workshops with Improbable’s artistic leadership Co-Artistic Diretors Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson and Associate Director Matilda Leyser

    • 4 nights’ accommodation in the Old Stables at Bore Place

    • All meals and refreshments throughout the week (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and afternoon tea – all dietaries catered for)

    • Transport to/from Sevenoaks station on arrival and departure days

  • We want to ensure that our Summer School is fully accessible for any participant who wishes to attend. When registering your interest for the project via the form, please fill out the section provided with any access needs you have so that we can ensure to accommodate them during your time at Bore Place with us. The form also includes a space to provide information on any preferences you have on room sharing to ensure everyone is assigned a room they feel comfortable with. If you have any access requirements, you’d like to discuss ahead of submitting your application please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team by emailing office@improbable.co.uk or by calling (+44) 020 7240 4556.

    Full information on the accessibility of the site at Bore Place can be found on the Bore Place website here. The key headlines are as follows:

    Overnight accommodation will be provided in The Old Stables which provides accessible overnight accommodation.

    • There is almost level access into the Old Stables. There is a lip on the front door and a ramp is provided to ease access.

    • There are accessible toilets and an accessible shower on the ground floor. These include an emergency alarm.

    • The dining and living areas are fully accessible.

    • Some of the bedrooms feature lower light switches and coat hooks.

    • Fire alarms in the Old Stables are strobes as well as audible alarms.

    • All doors in the Old Stables have low- level door protectors fitted.

    • All doors are manually operated.

    Workshop sessions will take place within the Large Barn which is accessed on one side by two sets of short stone steps. The building is accessible via a ramp on the other side. There is an accessible toilet in the Underloft space, which is a short distance across the courtyard (via the ramp) from the Large Barn.

    Some workshop sessions may also take place in the Bore Place Gardens. Parts of the Bore Place gardens are accessible, and we will ensure that all workshop activity takes place in these areas to ensure everyone can fully participate.

  • Bore Place has a large car park at the entrance of the site. If you choose to drive to the workshop, you can leave your car here for the duration at no cost. Access from this car park ot the main site is on level ground but is 100m away. There are also several accessible parking spaces at the heart of the site offering shorter access to the site, including outside the Old Stables. If you require one of these spaces, please note this on your enquiry form.

    Improbable will also offer an accessible shuttle service from Sevenoaks station to Bore Place. This will collect at 11am on the Monday morning of each week and will return to the station at 10.15am on the Friday morning. Please note if you require this service, and if you have access needs to be accommodated on your enquiry form.

  • Your week with us will be fully catered and dietary requirements can be catered for. Please fill out the relevant section of the enquiry form with your needs.

  • Accommodation is provided for Mon – Thurs of each night of the residency, but for anyone wishing to attend both weeks or wishing to stay longer in the area do get in touch with office@improbable.co.uk for suggestions of other places to stay near the site.

  • If you have any questions about the Summer School or about the application process please do not hesitate to contact us via email on office@improbable.co.uk.