An iNSPiRE BiTE-SiZE subscription allows you to get relevant inspiration and support in bite-sized texts that help you unlock — and unblock — your creative flow wherever and whenever you like.

iNSPiRE BiTE-SiZE texts provide development prompts and strategies to advance and enhance whatever you are creating — delivered to a private WhatsApp chat that you can access whenever you like.

iNSPiRE BiTE-SiZE content is designed to stimulate your creativity in seconds and help your imagination to keep working in the background as you go about your activities — increasing your productivity and saving you time.

To ensure the content of each text fits your unique evolving needs, you can specify content preferences and customise these as you go on your private WhatsApp chat.

With this 20 text iNSPiRE BiTE-SiZE subscription, you’ll receive a text 5 times a week in your chat. You can request that it is sent on/by a particular days of the week — or just access the content as/when you feel like doing so.

iNSPiRE BiTE-SiZE is a responsive service tailored to help you achieve your unique creative goals — one text at a time.

Give your creativity a boost for less than it costs to buy a coffee.

Try something different.

CREATE DiRECTORS WORKSHOPS are designed to stimulate, advance and enhance your directing skills, creative process and projects.

Get the best out of yourself, your collaborators and your resources by drawing on the expertise and experience of directors working across a wide range of mediums, forms, projects and environments — whatever your project, context and constraints.

The content of every CREATE workshop session is designed to cater for the specific, immediate creative development needs of those attending. All sessions will continually adapt to respond and serve each attending writer’s unique evolving needs and preferences.

TAOO workshops are uniquely flexible — you can choose when, where and how you’d like the workshop to take place (in-person or via video or audio-only call); whether you meet one-to-one (in a public venue like a coffee shop) or with a group of friends, colleagues, or other creatives you’ve yet to meet (by choosing between “private” and “open workshop”).

Each workshop appointment can be rescheduled with 48 hours notice — life is complex, and we want you to get the best possible return from your investment.

This means you can attend a single workshop or many, as and when it suits your schedule and budget, and still benefit from strategies and support directly tailored to your unique creative goals — ensuring that you come away from every workshop equipped for your next creative challenges.

What matters to you matters to us.

CREATE DiRECTORS WORKSHOPS, CREATiVE CONSULTS, RETREATS and READiNGS are coordinated and facilitated by Stephen Barnes, a creative polymath with decades of professional experience empowering hundreds of creatives — across all forms and levels of experience — to explore and fulfil their unique creative potentials by providing bespoke development strategies and support to them and their projects. He has worked with award-winning playwrights, authors, poets and screenwriters, as well as acclaimed directors, designers, musicians and visual artists, and with creatives of all ages just beginning to explore their creative potential. He has created and facilitated for highly visible organisations like the BBC, NHS, Tron Theatre, Playwrights Studio Scotland and Bijli Productions, amongst others, and also created projects focused on developing and showcasing the creativity of individuals in less visible, under-resourced communities across Scotland. Whatever you need, we’ll partner you with someone who will help you succeed. Our mentors, tutors and workshop facilitators are drawn from a trusted core of talented, compassionate, open-minded creative professionals. What matters to you matters to us.

An iNSPiRE Q&A subscription is an affordable way to get your questions answered by creative professionals with decades of experience supporting writers, directors, artists, performers, musicians, and other creators, with their unique creative projects, processes and visions.

Small obstacles can undermine (or stall) creative progress and momentum, but an iNSPiRE Q&A subscription can now offer you expert answers, insights and development strategies as and when you need them.

An iNSPiRE Q&A subscription allows you to ask us anything via a private WhatsApp chat that you can access whenever you like.

With this 20 text iNSPiRE Q&A subscription, you’ll receive a text response whenever you need one, and you can use your 20 iNSPiRE Q&A questions in whatever way is most useful to your creative process and projects.

An iNSPiRE Q&A is accessible, adaptable and concise — saving you time and money, and helping you get the most out of your creative process and potential.

Give your creativity a boost for less than it costs to buy a coffee.

Try something different.

REFiNE directors workshops are designed to support performers of all levels with their projects-in-development. If you’d like expert input to help you advance and enhance your projects, advance your craft, navigate creative challenges, provide strategies to unblock and unlock potential in your creative process and projects, and help you become the best director/dramaturg/facilitator/choreographer/leader you can be, then REFiNE is definitely for you.

The content of every REFiNE workshop session is designed to cater for the specific, immediate creative development needs of those attending. All sessions will continually adapt to respond and serve each attending creative’s unique evolving needs and preferences.

TAOO workshops are uniquely flexible — you can choose when, where and how you’d like the workshop to take place (in-person or via video or audio-only call); whether you meet one-to-one (in a public venue like a coffee shop) or with a group of friends, colleagues, or other creatives you’ve yet to meet (by choosing between “private” and “open workshop”).

Each workshop appointment can be rescheduled with 48 hours notice — life is complex and we want you to get the best possible return from your investment.

This means you can attend a single workshop or many, as and when it suits your schedule and budget, and still benefit from strategies and support directly tailored to your unique creative goals — ensuring that you come away from every workshop equipped for your next creative challenges.

What matters to you matters to us.

REFiNE DiRECTORS WORKSHOPS, CREATiVE CONSULTS, RETREATS and READiNGS are coordinated by Stephen Barnes, a creative polymath with decades of professional experience empowering hundreds of creatives — across all forms and levels of experience — to explore and fulfil their unique creative potentials by providing bespoke development strategies and support to them and their projects. He has worked with award-winning playwrights, authors, poets and screenwriters, as well as acclaimed directors, designers, musicians and visual artists, and with creatives of all ages just beginning to explore their creative potential. He has created and facilitated for highly visible organisations like the BBC, NHS, Tron Theatre, Playwrights Studio Scotland and Bijli Productions, amongst others, and also created projects focused on developing and showcasing the creativity of individuals in less visible, under-resourced communities across Scotland. Whatever you need, we’ll partner you with someone who will help you succeed. Our mentors, tutors and workshop facilitators are drawn from a trusted core of talented, compassionate, open-minded creative professionals.

iNSPiRE DiRECTOR MENTORiNG ensures you have the opportunity to regularly discuss whatever best serves your creative process with an expert, and receive detailed input, feedback and strategic development support — to help you achieve your unique creative goals, whatever your form(s) or medium(s).

iNSPiRE DiRECTOR MENTORiNG guarantees you 90 minutes of bespoke one-to-one support, and is available online and in-person (where possible) — whichever works best for you and your mentor.

You can use your monthly allocation of iNSPiRE MENTORiNG (90 min) in a single meeting, or divide it into two 45 minute meetings or three 30 minute meetings, depending on what supports you best that month.

You can submit up to 60 double-spaced, or 30 single-spaced pages, or up to an hour of any audio or visual materials for review (per 90 minutes of mentoring) — these can be submitted via theheartoforiginality@gmail.com once your session has been scheduled.

We have decades of experience successfully supporting the development of directors and their projects across every form, genre and presentation context imaginable — from students to acclaimed professionals; theatre and filmmakers, animators, dramaturgs, facilitators, writer-director-producer- performers, educators, visual artists, creators of all ages; privately and on behalf of/in collaboration with theatres, arts organisations and educational institutions — always with the goal of equipping and empowering each individual to fulfil their unique creative vision and aspirations.

Whether you’re looking to advance your skills, draw on expertise for the project/production you’re creating, trouble-shoot and bounce ideas, or to become the best director/dramaturg/facilitator and project leader you can be, we can provide whatever serves you best!

With iNSPiRE MENTORiNG we want to make this uniquely bespoke support accessible to anybody, and everybody, who is looking for advanced development support, and who wants to explore, advance and fulfil their creative potential.

What matters to you matters to us.

TAOO CREATiVE CONSULTS allow you to discuss your creative work, project(s) and process in-depth with an expert, who can help equip you with strategies and input to enable you to achieve your creative goals. All input is interactive and adapts to your priorities and what will help you make the most of your process and output.

Whatever form or medium(s) you work in, we can help you navigate obstacles and overcome all kinds of challenges. Our input is bespoke and empowering, and focused solely on supporting you to fulfil your vision.

You can decide whether you’d prefer to meet in person (if logistically viable) at a local coffee shop or public venue of your choice, or via a video or audio-only call.

You can fill in your preferences at the time of purchase, or email us (theheartoforiginality@gmail.com) whenever you decide you’d like to schedule your consult.

All the information you provide will help us ensure we can support you as effectively and conveniently as possible — we want to support your unique creative vision and process.

TAOO CREATiVE CONSULTS offer insightful input and development strategies spanning a range of perspectives from creation to production / presentation / publication / exhibition / etc, ensuring that you are equipped to succeed.

Each consult is up to 90 minutes long, hosted in a format and location of your choice, and you decide how you’d like to utilise the session in terms of what our discussions focus on, the input and/or constructive feedback and development strategies you’d like — what matters to you matters to us.

You can submit up to 60 double-spaced, or 30 single-spaced pages or up to an hour of any audio or visual materials for review (per consult) — these can be submitted via theheartoforiginality@gmail.com once your session has been scheduled.