Maidenhead Advertiser, August 29 2003

An actor from Twyford has launched a company which provides roleplay-based workshops for businesses.

Adrian McDougall and four other professional actors in Berkshire are behind CentreStage Roleplay which offers businesses the opportunity to develop employees' skills through roleplay-based learning workshops, interactive forum theatre and issue-based sketches.

The team has a combined total of more than 100 years working in business, including marketing, public relations, hotel and catering, corporate training and IT industries which they say enables them to bring an extensive knowledge of real business practice and appropriate industry 'speak' to their workshops.

Mr McDougall said: "We provide training sometimes in disciplines such as communication skills, presentation and management techniques but a lot of our work is simply roleplay.

"For example if a company wanted to run a workshop for managers on disciplinary procedure they might spend a day working through the theory of it but they do not have a way of testing it.

"Roleplay enables them to test it before they put them into a real situation. We find when people are put in a safe environment it gives them the opportunity to take risks, they learn about the courses they have been on and also about themselves and areas they need to work on."

Each workshop is designed to match the structure, mindset and ethics of the individual company.

"The feedback we have been getting is very much that if you take employees out of their offices they are able to let go and enjoy it," said Mr McDougall.

"With Forum Theatre two or three actors act out a scene relevant to the course the employees are on and they have a hand on how the scene is played and it allows them to see how their actions affect a particular situation but without the risk of them making a fool of themselves in front of everyone."