THE SPOOKY STORYTELLING WORKSHOP

Tell better stories. Build suspense. Hold your audience.
The room is quiet.
Everyone knows something is about to happen.
But you make them wait…
A spooky story isn’t frightening simply because of what happens.
It’s frightening because of how you tell it.
The Spooky Storytelling Workshop is a practical Halloween workshop led by professional actor Caspar from IPA Productions, exploring how voice, timing, silence, physicality, and imagination can transform a simple story into something an audience really wants to listen to.
And while we’ll be using Halloween as our excuse to make things spooky, the techniques you learn can be used for any kind of storytelling.

What will we work on?
Through practical exercises, storytelling games and performance techniques, we’ll explore:
How to grab an audience’s attention from the beginning
Creating atmosphere
Building suspense
Using silence effectively
Creating contrast with your voice
Creating images in the listener’s imagination
Holding information back
Knowing when to reveal the important detail
Making an audience lean forward and listen
Finding the difference between dramatic and simply overdoing it
And, of course, we’ll experiment with how to make a story just a little bit more unsettling…

How will the workshop work?
This is a practical storytelling workshop.
You won’t spend the morning listening to someone explain how storytelling works.
Instead, Caspar will guide you through exercises that allow you to try different techniques for yourself.
You might tell the same moment quickly and then slowly.
You might discover how a pause can completely change the effect of a sentence.
You might tell a story using very little movement — and then explore what happens when you add physical character and gesture.
You’ll experiment, play, and discover how small changes can make a big difference to the way an audience responds.

Who is it for?
This workshop is for anyone who wants to become a more engaging storyteller.
It is especially suitable for:
Actors and performers who want to develop storytelling, vocal variety and audience connection
Teachers who use stories, reading aloud, drama or roleplay in the classroom
Parents who would love to make bedtime stories and family storytelling more memorable
Storytellers and writers who want to bring their words to life
Speakers and presenters who want to become more engaging when telling anecdotes and stories
Anyone who simply enjoys telling stories and would like to get better at it
You don’t need any acting or performance experience.
You just need to be willing to tell a story and experiment with how you tell it.

What will I take away?
By the end of the workshop, you should have:
Practical techniques for holding an audience’s attention
Greater control over pace, pauses and silence
More vocal variety
Techniques for building suspense and atmosphere
Greater confidence telling stories aloud
Exercises you can use to practise storytelling in the future
Teachers and parents will also leave with plenty of techniques they can use when reading aloud or telling stories to children.
Most importantly, you’ll start thinking not only about:
“What happens in my story?”
but also:
“How can I make my audience experience it?”
That is where good storytelling really begins.

Your workshop leader
Caspar Jones is a professional actor and trainer with IPA Productions.
As a working performer, storytelling is a fundamental part of his craft - creating characters, controlling rhythm, building tension, and keeping an audience engaged.
In this practical workshop, Caspar will share techniques from the actor’s toolkit and allow you to experiment with them yourself.