Saturday 4th Decemeber 2010 was the first day of what will be an ongoing collaboration between the australian theatre for young people and The Red Room Company. The project consists of a series of workshops between contemporary Australian poets and the young actors involved with atyp, teaching them about poetry, how to read it and how to recite it. It is an intense, intimate process in which the actors spend time one-on-one with the poets, sharing insights about the writing and performing process. Hopefully these workshops will feed into another project involving collaborations between poets and actors.

The first day of workshops involved Ballarat poet Nathan Curnow and Blue Mountains-based poet Craig Billingham. The project is fruitful for both parties. The students from ATYP receive a unique insight into the business of writing and reading poetry, while the poets gain a unique insight into their work, hearing it read in a new context, by new voices. Both Nathan and Craig have given enthusiastic feedback, excited by the opportunity to relate to their work in a new way.