REFiNE WORKSHOPS are designed to support creatives of all kinds with their projects-in-development. If you’d like expert input to help you advance and enhance your projects, navigate creative challenges, provide strategies to unblock and unlock potential in your creative process and projects, or just to connect with other creators, 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 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 a “private” and “open” workshop).
Open workshops details will be posted on this website, so anyone can book a place — and private workshops details will be communicated to you privately by a friend/colleague, if limited to a specific group of participants.
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.
Save yourself time and money by purchasing a 6 workshop bundle at a 15% discount — you decide how, when and where you use them to support your creativity.
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 creative potential.
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.
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).
REFiNE WORKSHOPS, CREATiVE CONSULTS, RETREATS and READiNGS are facilitated by Stephen Barnes, a creative polymath with decades of professional experience empowering hundreds of creatives — across a diverse range of forms, media, contexts 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 can help you succeed.
Just like our workshops and consults, REFiNE RETREATS offer the opportunity to dedicate time and attention to refining your project/product in a relaxing, supportive environment tailored to meet your creative priorities and needs.
Whether hosted online or in-person we can tailor a weekend/week (whatever period best suits your needs and budget) to ensure maximum productivity and creative breakthrough for you and your collaborators/fellow creatives.
Retreats can be private or open to other creatives, and can take place at any time of the year — day or night.
If you fancy a break to give your creative projects your undivided attention, while receiving expert support from experienced creative practitioners, then let’s build a retreat that ticks all boxes you care about most.
To get the ball rolling, just drop us an email.
REFiNE READiNGS enable writers to hear their words brought to life by performers — online or in-person — and enable performers to support the further development of the writing being tested and/or showcased for an audience.
Most writers find well-facilitated readings invaluable in helping them refine and complete their projects, but many writers aren’t offered this opportunity due to a lack of funding and/or access to experienced performers, directors and facilitators.
After many years of facilitating development readings with both professional and non-professional performers on behalf of theatres and arts organisations, as well as privately, we can finally offer writers a development reading built to match their unique needs and budgets.
REFiNE READiNGS are more accessible financially and logistically, and offer unparalleled outcomes due to expert, multi-dimensional development input from experienced writers, directors, performers and producers.
If you have a script and would like to test or showcase it for an audience or private development purposes — we can help you get the very best out of your manuscript both in terms of the reading and development feedback it generates.
Tell us what you have in mind, and we’ll build a bespoke reading that works for you in every way.
